Sandra Jackoboice has been an artist all her life, and remembers drawing as a little kid, thanks in large part to her Dad’s influence. “We lived in Detroit when I was growing up and my Dad was a commercial artist for a while,” Sandra said. “So I would play around with the things that he was using, and I guess that’s where I picked it up.” Once Sandra picked up art, she never put it down. It’s still a hobby the future Vi at Bentley Village resident continues to this day. 

These days, Sandra primarily focuses her art on painting, with her medium of choice being pastel or acrylic. She’s even developed a new pastel technique. While most pastels need to be displayed under glass, so the delicate material does not blow away, her technique creates a pastel heavy enough to “adhere or stay on a canvas.” She calls her painting subjects “traditional,” and they run the gamut from delicate floral arrangements, to wild landscapes, to people in their natural environments.

“I’m more traditional. I paint landscapes, people, just about anything really,” she said. “I don’t do abstract – I don’t know how to do abstract which sounds a little strange!”

Art is a passion Sandra is happy to share, through teaching classes and workshops at the von Liebig Art Center, the Philharmonic Center of the Arts, and Ave Maria University. Her classes consist mostly of adult students. When asked if there was a particular challenge in teaching adults, she says with a laugh, “No. I think it’s probably more challenging to teach children! Adults tend to listen to what you’re saying and do what you want them to.”

A Naples resident for about 14 years, Sandra moved to Florida from Ann Arbor with her husband, Jim. Like many, they traveled back and forth for the first few years before finally becoming permanent residents. After Jim passed away in 2012, her sons urged her to start looking for new living arrangements. 

Sandra had toured six other communities in the Naples area, but a lot were high-rises. “It’s restrictive,” she said. “I really like the open spaces here,” Sandra said of Bentley Village. “Before we came to Florida, we lived on a river, and so I was outside all the time. I’m really glad about being close to nature again.”

Sandra will be moving into the Bayberry unit, one of the 72 brand-new independent living apartments set to open later this year. “I decided I’d like to wait for the new ones,” she said. She chose Bayberry because it has a den, which she plans to use as a sort of art studio, for her supplies, easel, and works in progress.

Today, Sandra is content to bide her time until her new apartment at Bentley Village opens later this year, saying that she’s not in a rush and has plenty of art projects and other things to to keep her busy – something that won’t soon change after she moves in. “I don’t like to paint necessarily in groups. I’m kind of a loner when I’m painting, but the art department has a space and it would be nice to go in and see what’s going on.“