Artist Profiles
Sky’s The Limit
Some artists spend a lifetime searching for a signature subject. Sue Torngren found hers just by looking up.
The Sacramento painter is captivated by California’s skies—the clouds, the light, the drama. Sky became the defining narrative in her paintings, inviting viewers to savor moments that often go unnoticed.
When I first visited the artist in her Land Park studio a decade ago, she was producing close-up, vividly colored images of succulents in large-scale oil paintings. I featured several on Inside covers.
Passion For Pottery
Clay bowls, cups, vessels and vases crowd open shelving. Some of the ceramic pieces are finished with swirling earth-toned glazes. Others await their turn in a kiln.
Buckets of home-mixed glazes line one wall from top to bottom. Ceramicist tools and art supplies fill plastic bins. Pottery wheels sit side by side, adjacent to long high-top working tables.
23C Studio is a ceramic arts cooperative tucked away in a warehouse at 23rd and C streets in Midtown. The space is dusty and rustic, open to the weather, no air conditioning and limited heating. But the studio is fully equipped for wheel throwing and hand building, creating and collaborating.
Well Together
Well Together Community artist honors Spanish-speaking elders By Cathryn Rakich August 2026 They are the Manitos, Spanish-speaking elders who laugh together, cry together, share their pasts and embrace their futures. Their stories should be recounted, recorded and...
Creative Tension
At age 80, Sacramento artist Suzanne Adan still delights in unsettling people gently, mischievously and with wit and humor.
Her retrospective exhibition, “I’m No Spring Chicken,” through Oct. 11 at the Crocker Art Museum, celebrates a career that spans five decades and establishes Adan as one of the region’s most important artists.
The exhibition features more than 100 paintings, prints, drawings and ceramic sculptures that reveal a personal, visual language shaped by childhood memories, dark humor, vintage Americana and sly social commentary.
Stress Relief
Dr. Steven Taggart spent nearly 50 years practicing family and emergency medicine. Based in Atwater, he trained physician assistants and nurse practitioners from UC Davis and helped open rural health clinics throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
With the stress of his profession, the retired clinician and educator needed time away from medicine. Decades ago, Taggart turned to photography.
“It was an escape for me from the high tension of being a family practice person and having 50 employees at one point,” Taggart, 74, says of his hobby.
Passion For Pottery
Clay bowls, cups, vessels and vases crowd open shelving. Some of the ceramic pieces are finished with swirling earth-toned glazes. Others await their turn in a kiln.
Buckets of home-mixed glazes line one wall from top to bottom. Ceramicist tools and art supplies fill plastic bins. Pottery wheels sit side by side, adjacent to long high-top working tables.
23C Studio is a ceramic arts cooperative tucked away in a warehouse at 23rd and C streets in Midtown. The space is dusty and rustic, open to the weather, no air conditioning and limited heating. But the studio is fully equipped for wheel throwing and hand building, creating and collaborating.
