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Arts & Entertainment

Artist Profile: Sabina Yates

Art instructor still enjoying her lifelong artistic trip.

According to Sabina Yates (pronounced Suh-bine-uh), she's been painting for 100 years, but it's really only been since grade school. She was an artistic child growing up in Chicago; she received scholarships for classes at the Art Institute. She recalls taking the bus once a week to the institute, where she later met her husband, Gene.

The two moved to California after graduation and Yates worked as a waitress and bookkeeper. The couple lived in Sausalito, and Sonoma, where they raised their three girls.

Yates began teaching portrait painting, which evolved into a drawing class at the Santa Rosa Junior College, where her husband also taught. Yates returned to school later, receiving a teaching credential from Sonoma State.

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Once their girls had grown, the couple built a 4,000-square-foot pole house on a Sebastopol hillside. The building was the fun part, so after the house was completed in 1986, the couple moved to Benicia, where their daughters lived.

“When I quit teaching I decided that for too long, as Leonardo Di Vinci said, it was all theory and no experience,” says Yates. She decided to practice what she preached and returned to sketching with charcoal. Yates recently took a sketching hike with the Sierra Club around Mare Island. “I really like it. The sketching is so important and necessary.”

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Yates has been admired in the Benicia art community for 25 years. Her landscapes in acrylics and black and white sketches demonstrate her versatility. Yates has been exhibiting her artwork at and local venues for several years.  “Art has been a good trip,” she says.

Open Studios location: Benicia Main Street at the Train Depot building, 90 First St.

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