Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

The Creators: Sam Guindon's artistic palette

The Creators:
Sam Guindon's artistic palette

Norfolk painter Sam Guindon.

Jennifer Almquist

Painter Sam Guindon is an earnest young man who paints light with the skill of John Singer Sargent. Guindon’s attention to technique harks back to an earlier time when artists studied under a master, learned anatomy, perspective, how to make their own pigment, and closely observed the work of great artists. Guindon has studied oil painting since he was nineteen. In a recent show of his paintings in his hometown of Norfolk, Connecticut, Guindon sold 40 of the 42 paintings he exhibited.

Guindon’s sketchbooks are windows into his creative mind and a well-traveled life, packed with vignettes, ink drawings, observations and thoughts written in the margins. His subjects range from sketches done in gouache at the National Gallery, to ink drawings of vine-covered trees in Costa Rica, to the interior of an airplane drawn with the perspective of a fisheye lens, to colorful bottles of hot sauce. Currently Guindon is teaching art at the Compass Atelier in Maryland.

Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist

The Creators Interview:

Jennifer Almquist: What are your plans after you come home to Norfolk this winter?

Sam Guindon: Picasso said, “There’s no great art without great solitude.” I plan to spend a year solo creating one thousand paintings on paper in Santa Fe, Norway, Costa Rica, and Ireland.

We went to Costa Rica, where my dad is from, for a year when I was in 3rd grade. I will be there for three months doing some work on our house this winter. I’m going do some plein air (in the open air) painting in the jungle.

JA: Tell me your earliest memory of wanting to draw or paint. How old were you?

SG: My first memories are very illustrative, light-filled - as if they are paintings. The first drawings I did, when I was two, were very imaginative. I drew a lot of monsters as my earliest subjects. I liked drawing monsters because the anatomy is never incorrect. You have the freedom to just draw whatever you imagine.

JA: How have your paintings evolved?

SG: Only more recently did my art come around to being representative of anything. I guess it was more just a desire to create things, as opposed to capturing things. Now the desire to create has been fused with the desire to record the world. In that sense, especially with plein air paintings, you can capture your experience. I think the sketchbook is similar in that it’s a record of my journey throughout the year.

Work from Sam Guindon's sketchbook.Jennifer Almquist

JA: Your sketchbooks are wonderful. Where did you draw these?

SG: Those are copies from the National Gallery of different artists. The sketchbook has turned into half sketchbook/ half journal which is fun to look back on. It feels more lived in.

JA: When did you realize that you wanted to go to school for this?

SG: I went to a liberal arts school, Hamilton College. I was not sold on being an art major. My mom told me when I was a kid that I should do something that I loved as a career. That pushed me to have the courage to study art.

JA: Did you have a teacher that influenced you?

SG: My advanced painting teacher was the first to introduce a more traditional kind of education. She had us do master studies, taught us about different pigments, their history, how you use them.

JA: What was your plan after college?

SG: Taking classes online through Compass. My teacher has changed the way I paint. He taught me how to mix color in a scientific way.

Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist

JA: In your recent show in Norfolk of smaller paintings, you sold out! How do you explain that success?

SG: The new paintings have a different feeling, a little more raw, more accessible. Before I had only shown my studio work. I learn more about painting from these smaller, direct observation pieces.

JA: Your paintings are of everyday things like tractors and bulldozers, workshops, hydrants, and your own sneakers. What draws you to your subject matter?

SG: Those are my dad’s tractors - they’re from Belarus. They are Soviet era and have a lot of personality. I remember as a kid working with these immensely powerful things that could crush you so easily. They are rusty, they misfire in the winter, they’ve got hydraulic leaks. If you’re a kid who looks closely at things, they have meaning that other people don’t feel or see. It is a shame that we lose our child’s eye, through which everything has meaning and beauty. That is something that I think about, finding a sort of equanimity by just finding beauty in uncelebrated things, quiet things.

JA: Did you like reading books when you were little?

SG: I loved reading books, especially fantasy. In Costa Rica life is slow, so we spent a lot of time just reading from the old library, and drawing. I love Percy Jackson and Tintin. I just learned Andy Warhol and Herge, the author of Tintin, were good friends!

JA: Do you like the paintings of John Singer Sargent?

SG: He was one of the painters that got me into this. He’s the gateway drug to more traditional painters. It is cool to see his sketches because you can see the artist’s hand. He was good at showing you what he wanted you to see in his paintings.

Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist

JA: Your favorite artists?

SG: Jeremy Mann, Mark Boedges, Richard Schmid, Antonio Lopez Garcia, Rackstraw Downes, Quang Ho, George Bellows, Camille Corot, Gustave Caillebotte, Peter Paul Rubens, and Franz Kline.

JA: Do you dream in paintings?

SG: If I am working on a painting intensely, or drawing, then I will dream about it.

JA: There is much creative shorthand in the world now, using artificial intelligence, digital cameras, or 3D printing. Your ability to paint, using your mind and your hands, is going to be an increasingly rare skill. Will you resist the ease of modern forms of image creation?

SG: Different factors make it rare. The more art that I make, the more insulated I am against like that kind of influence. Because you really can’t be making something while distracted in a million ways by your phone.

Latest News

Plans to revitalize Norfolk’s Infinity Hall unveiled

Infinity Hall, built in 1883.

Jennifer Almquist

Nearly 200 people packed the wooden seats of Norfolk’s historic Infinity Hall on Thursday, May 14, as David Rosenfeld, owner and founder of Goodworks Entertainment Group, a live entertainment and venue management company, unveiled ambitious plans to restore the restaurant and bar, expand programming and reestablish the venue as a central gathering place for the community.

Since the Norfolk Pub closed on Jan. 31, 2026, the need for a restaurant and evening gathering place has become paramount, and for years residents have wanted Infinity Hall to be more engaged with the community.

Keep ReadingShow less

May Castleberry’s next chapter

May Castleberry’s next chapter

May Castleberry at home in Lakeville.

Natalia Zukerman
Castleberry’s idea of happiness is “looking at a great painting.”

May Castleberry is a ball of sunshine and passion, though she grew up an introverted child, moving with her family from Alberta to Colorado to Texas, finding comfort in mountains, books and wide-open skies. Today, the former art book editor and museum curator has found a new home in Lakeville, where the natural beauty of the Northwest Corner continues to captivate her. Whether walking with friends, painting, reading or visiting beloved local libraries in Salisbury, Norfolk and Cornwall, Castleberry has embraced the region since making her move permanent in 2022, bringing with her a remarkable career shaped by a lifelong love of books and art.

Castleberry grew up in the world of books, and especially art books, and she credits her artist mother, an avid art book collector, with igniting her passions. Castleberry’s high school art teacher in Dallas understood how to teach students to channel their imaginations into books and art.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hoarding 
With Style: Sarah Blodgett’s art of collecting

Sarah Blodgett has turned her passion for collecting into “something larger.”

Photo by Sarah Blodgett

There is something wonderfully disarming about walking into a space where nothing feels overly polished, overly planned or pulled from a catalog — a place where history lingers in the corners, where color is fearless, where the objects on the shelves have stories to tell and where, if you are lucky, a cat named Cinnamon may be supervising the entire operation.

That is the world of Sarah Blodgett.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Dr. Paul J. Fasano

Dr. Paul J. Fasano

SHARON — Dr. Paul J. Fasano DDS, of Brewster, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully after a long illness on May 10, 2026, in Boston.

Born in Boston to Philip and Laura (Stolarsky) Fasano on Dec. 13, 1946, he grew up in Dorchester with his two brothers Philip and William.Paul attended the Boston Latin School and graduated from Boston College in 1968.He later completed Dental School at New York University in 1972.

Keep ReadingShow less

David Niles Parker

David Niles Parker

KENT — David Niles Parker, 88, of Middletown, Connecticut, passed away at home on May 6, 2026.

Born January 20, 1938, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the first child to Franklin and Katharine Niles Parker, David graduated from Wellesley High School, received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University, studied at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and earned his master’s in education from Harvard.

Keep ReadingShow less

Memorial Service — Huntington Williams

Memorial Service — Huntington Williams

CORNWALL — Beloved and greatly respected Cornwall resident Huntington (“Hunt”) Williams, surrounded by family, died April 10, the result of an injury sustained from a fall. He was 95 years old and had lived in Cornwall, a town he loved deeply, for the last 45 years.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, May 31 at 1PM at the North Cornwall Meeting House, burial is private.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.