Color is everywhere. The fuchsia of the bourganvilla, the aqua of the Pacific’s water—these are the things that get Sandy Sanjuro excited.
“I see these colors and just don’t know what to do with it all,” she says with excitement in her voice. Her eyes get large and her movements a bit faster as she points out the newly blooming fuchsia flowers around her home in East San Jose.
Her home has various examples of this hanging from her walls—seascapes in every hue of blue imaginable.
“Big and bright and loud,” Sanjuro says of the colors that inspire her. “I believe in reincarnation and I must have done this in a past life because it came so naturally.”
Of course, she is talking about her art. She isn’t classically trained as an artist. In fact, she studied journalism at Cal Poly and worked in the marketing and advertising industry before she fell into her current place as a small business owner.
She started Munio-Ink in 2006 as a T-shirt company, printing her images onto eco-friendly, fashion forward tees. When she started designing the marketing material for the business, paint on skin made sense. She began painting beautiful seascapes onto her good friend’s skin and the result was very well received.
Before the business, art was something she’s always done.
“I’ve been doing art since I was big enough to hold a pencil,” Sanjuro says with a bright smile.
As a little girl, she colored everything. She’d take her mother’s lipstick and paint her whole face, the brighter the colors, the better.
“I love coloring, blending colors, contrasting them,” she says. “I’m obsessed with it. Drawing is just a means to an end.”
She has also been inspired by all things in nature.
“The flowers, the ocean the color of fish and the patterns and textures, they all inspire me,” she says. “But there’s something specifically about the ocean. It’s peaceful but there’s a fiery intensity about it all.”
Sanjuro’s excitement over color, art and the natural world is infectious and she plans to spread that at Seaskin the exhibit at Kaleid tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m. It’s her first official show, in her hometown no less and she hopes people will be excited. The proceeds of the show will all be going to Oceana, an organization that focuses on ocean conservation. And although she won’t have any of her human subjects on hand, she will have some equally impressive stand-ins.
“This is my coming out as an artist,” Sanjuro says. “I’m as excited as I am nervous. There’s a theme and a cause. Art and music and charity can all go together real easily.”
She was first interested in raising money for Oceana when she learned more about the epidemic of shark fining.
“They are such an essential part of an ecosystem,” Sanjuro says.” Because the ocean inspires me so much I wanted to help these powerful creatures have a voice. If my paint can help them have a voice, I feel like I’m doing something positive.”
Seaskin happens tonight, 6 to 9 p.m. at Kaleid Gallery, 88 So. 4th Street. $10 donation at the door goes to Oceana. For more information, visit www.munio-ink.com.
Story and photos by. m. p. flores