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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, JuNE 5, 2021
Seperanza’s piece ‘9-5 No More’ is featured at RiverSea Gallery.
Speranza: ‘I’ve wanted to
be an artist since I was 5’
Continued from Page B1
Next, she’s looking for-
ward to transitioning back
into jewelry making for the
Astoria Sunday Market and
other projects.
Speranza was intro-
duced to jewelry making at
the Oregon College of Art
& Craft. Before joining the
college, she worked at a
jewelry store. She decided
to try her hand at a met-
alsmithing class at the col-
lege, she said.
“I really, really liked it
so when I actually went to
school I decided to enter the
metalsmithing program,”
she said.
Here, she learned how
to work with many differ-
ent materials, allowing her
to create both jewelry and
smaller sculpture pieces.
Painting is the more
recent medium Speranza
has delved into. When she
went to graduate school at
East Carolina University,
she initially enrolled in the
school’s metals program but
wanted to try painting, too.
“In my second year I told
my painting teacher, ‘I’m
going to try this, I don’t
know if I’m going to like
it or not but we’re going to
give it a whirl for a semes-
ter’ and I just kind of fell in
love with it,” Speranza said.
“Since grad school, I’ve
been honing and refining
my voice in it.”
Always snapping pho-
tos of eye-catching scenes
and architecture she sees
around town, Speranza finds
unwavering inspiration in
her Astoria surroundings.
“(My photos) end up
being a vault of source mate-
rial. Sometimes I’ll take a
picture of something and
then look through my phone
and think, ‘Oh, I really like
that, that could be a jumping
off point for a sculpture or
painting,’” she said.
Astoria’s
historical
A piece of jewelry Speranza created.
Speranza
buildings and unique land-
marks are especially atten-
tion-grabbing for Speranza.
“I’m definitely drawn
towards architecture,” she
said. “So I love being in
a town like Astoria where
there’s a great deal of his-
tory. I’m really attracted to
the grittiness of the build-
ings and enjoy just seeing
the history.”
Inspiration within
Immediately before the
coronavirus
pandemic,
Speranza spent February
2020 in rural Finland, where
she completed an artist resi-
dency at the Arteles Creative
Center. She had the opportu-
nity to do group meditation
classes, which have had a
lasting impact on her work
as an artist.
“It really just allowed
me to learn those habits that
allow you to listen to your
thoughts,” she said.
A lover of creating, being
an artist has been a lifelong
talent of Speranza’s.
“I’ve wanted to be an art-
ist since I was 5,” she said.
In kindergarten, Speranza
had a homework assign-
ment where her teacher
asked what she wanted to be
when she grew up. Speranza
answered: artist.
When she went to art
school in her 20s, Speranza
said it cemented her career
choice and she fell even
more in love with creating.
“I don’t really know
where that came from but I
would consider it a calling,”
she said.
Zoë Buchli is a contrib-
utor to The Astorian and
Coast Weekend.