Sky’s The Limit
Artist’s paintings and photos capture California’s beauty
By Cecily Hastings
September 2026
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.
But the sky kept drawing her back, away from close-up views of plants.
Another lifelong fascination unfolded at the same time. Long before digital cameras and smartphones documented every roadside stop and meal, Torngren was preserving another California, a place of family-owned cafés, neighborhood repair shops, hand-painted signs and small businesses.
Those photographs, taken over nearly three decades while traveling between Sacramento and Los Angeles, became “California A–Z,” a hardcover photo essay that debuts at this year’s Sac Open Studios.
Although one body of Torngren’s work involves paint and the other photographs, both come from paying attention to places worth remembering.
Her artistic calling shaped a fulfilling career. Born in Woodland and raised in Sacramento, Torngren is a UC Davis graduate, earning her bachelor’s degree in art in the late 1960s and early ’70s under Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson and other legends.
“I was very lucky, as I considered it one of the department’s most exciting periods,” she says.
She also studied at Sacramento City College and UC San Diego before traveling to France in 2022 to extend her knowledge of oil painting. Works from that trip are displayed at Riverside Clubhouse in Land Park.
Her paintings have appeared throughout Northern California, with exhibitions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Northern California Art, Verge Center for the Arts, Davis Art Center, Sacramento State and regional galleries.
Landscape is her artistic home, particularly the skies that stretch across California. Whether depicting brilliant summer clouds or the subtle colors of evening, her paintings evoke emotion and capture not merely what a place looks like, but what one feels standing beneath it.
Inspiration arrived in 1996 when she commuted between Sacramento and Los Angeles for a job making costumes for the first “Austin Powers” movie series.
“That became four years of sewing for film and television,” she says. “I kept my Sacramento home and commuted to North Hollywood,” she says.
Torngren abandoned Interstate 5 whenever possible, preferring to wander through small towns. She discovered an overlooked landscape of independent businesses whose names reflected the people who built them: Bill’s Stunt Service, Vic’s 24-Hr. Café, Milt’s Coffee Shop and hundreds more.
Armed with a point-and-shoot camera, she recorded thousands of images. The photos were authentic with only minimal editing, preserving the character of places that have since disappeared.
The book idea came during her 2025 Open Studio. Visitors spent hours browsing nearly 400 greeting cards created from her travel photos. People began to share stories of roadside businesses they remembered. A friend thought the collection deserved a permanent home.
The result is “California A–Z,” an elegant 8½-inch square hardcover that functions as a visual road trip and archive. More than nostalgia, it celebrates the independent spirit that defined California communities.
Visitors to this year’s Sac Open Studios can experience both sides of Torngren’s artistic journeys. Along with a new collection of luminous sky paintings, they can meet the artist, explore “California A–Z,” and discover how one woman preserves pieces of regional history that would be lost without her.
Sue Torngren opens her Land Park studio at 1737 Burnett Way for Sac Open Studios Sept. 12–13, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free admission. For information, visit vergecontemporary.org.
Cecily Hastings can be reached at publisher@insidepublications.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
