Martha Sando is an artist and teacher. A native mid-westerner, Martha has been painting in oil since the age of 12 when her mother purchased an easel and set of oils for her. She regularly attended Saturday morning art classes at Illinois Wesleyan University and pursued an art major at Illinois State University. Discouraged by painting methodologies that were not committed to a disciplined technical foundation, Martha switched her college concentration to photography and ceramics. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in studio art and received her MAT from Webster University in St. Louis, MO

She has taught art in St. Louis, Charlottesville, Virginia and in Indianapolis. Since 2000, she has taught both Beginning and Advanced Painting and Photography at North Central High School.

In October 2002, a Lilly China exchange partnership with Washington Township Schools awarded Martha the opportunity to teach Chinese students. In addition, she had the opportunity to travel throughout China and see some of its art.

She received a Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant in 2007. Traveling to Russia, visiting the Pushkin, Tretyakov, and Hermitage Museums and doing small en plein air studies gave Martha the opportunity to see great works of art as well as create her own paintings. She believes that reproductions of art are not a satisfactory substitute for standing before masterpieces and taking in the full impart of an artist's work. She believes that every artist and student should visit as many museums as possible in order to study directly the brushwork and subtle nuances of paintings. Martha continues to shoot film and work in her darkroom. However, she uses her digital Nikon as a tool for painting and strongly believes it is not to be substituted for painting from life.

For Martha, painting requires a creative spirit, perseverance and a dedication to study with critically acclaimed artists. She has taken workshops with Ken Auster, Carolyn Anderson, Camille Przewodek and Todd Reifers. She is considering a workshop with Burton Silverman in the Hudson River Valley in July 2009.

"I consider myself a contemporary traditionalist who sees the abstract in ordinary imagery. My goal is to interpret the subject and expand on that interpretation to make a personal statement."

"Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not work is salvation."
- Chuck Close