Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Salas.
Hi Lauren, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Del Mar and always had a love for the horses, art, and the coastal lifestyle- I was definitely a surf bum as a teenager! My grandmother (maternal) is an artist and had me painting the moment I could hold a brush in my hand. This really sparked a love for creating early on and I was always working on my latest masterpiece with pens, markers, and paints. At the same time, I was begging my mom for riding lessons, and when I turned four she found a sweet woman who took me under her wing. My mom isn’t quite sure where my innate drive to be on the back of a horse came from, but she was thrilled to support my passion and although we couldn’t always afford it she did everything she could to support me and my riding from cleaning stalls to mending fences and feeding horses by my side to work off my riding lessons. I am not sure I will ever be able to thank her enough for everything she did, but it sure did instill in me a bold work ethic and a can-do attitude.
Through school, I continued to pursue art through various extracurricular classes and later on via my elective units in high school and college. I always found peace and focus in art, it was a great way for me to wind down from a busy day; meditative almost. My career with horses also continued to blossom, and by the time I was 15, I had graduated from feeding and cleaning stalls to pay for my horse’s board and moved on to teaching beginner riding lessons. I have always been passionate about teaching; watching my students grow and improve is fulfilling and rewarding and I was lucky to have opportunities to hone my skill from a young age. This is also when my love for fitness grew, as I became acutely aware of the direct correlation to your physical strength and ability to ride effectively, and really began to focus on supplementing my riding endeavors with strength training and conditioning.
When I turned 18, I moved to Santa Barbara and attended UCSB. I fell in love with Santa Barbara, the proximity to the mountains, the density of equestrian activity, the active lifestyle, and the ocean views from campus- there was always time for a surf between classes! Throughout my time there, I worked as the assistant to a hunter jumper trainer in the foothills of Goleta who ran a really professional and successful program at a very neat facility with ocean views and a busy show schedule. I also made a point to fill my academic schedule with as many artistic outlets as I could, taking figure drawing and painting classes whenever I could fit them in. I majored in Communication Studies and really loved the program, but also (somehow) found the time to minor in exercise and sports studies and had the opportunity to do a deep dive on the intricacies of equestrian specific strength training.
Upon graduating, I was able to start my own small business training horses out of Santa Barbara and neighboring Santa Ynez. It was a dream come true, especially because I had met and fallen in love with a cowboy who I had hired to shoe my client’s horses. By the time I was 23, we were married and living on a 4500-acre ranch in Santa Ynez where he managed the cattle operation and I ran my jumper barn. I got to learn a ton about ranching and everything that came with it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. There were many nights spent helping heifers through their first laborious calving season, long Sundays mending fences and counting cattle, and endless belly laughs in the branding corral making friendships that have endured over the last decade. It was really fun to immerse myself in a completely different facet of the equestrian world, and I certainly learned so much about horsemanship. I still took quite evenings to myself to sketch or paint, but because I was so busy my cabinet of art supplies in the garage admittedly collected some dust during those years.
My farmhouse fairy tale didn’t last forever, though. When I was 25, it was becoming clear that my husband and I weren’t on the same life track. He had sustained a serious traumatic brain injury that had acted as a catalyst to a complete shakedown of my life as I had known it. Navigating the aftermath of TBI was brutal. He didn’t want the same life we had had before, and I was not about to leave my business and everything I had worked for to follow him as he ambled about the country trying to re-assess his life purpose. It was gut-wrenching and sad, but we went our separate ways or, to be more specific, he left and I stayed on the ranch to continue to manage it in his absence. This transition was rocky, as I knew the ranch and all of its ins and outs so well at that point, but by the time our hired ranch hands rolled out at 5:00 I was there alone. 4500 acres of wild, myself, and my dog, Roscoe.
I had to dig deep here and learn to navigate functioning alongside fear and uncertainty but learned so much about myself and what I was capable of. I also began to paint again, which, with a stroke of luck (pun intended) actually spearheaded my career as a professional artist. I had posted some of my recent work on social media, and a friend from my barn reached out to commission me to paint her horses and dogs. I had major impostor syndrome but went for it, and my friend was extremely pleased with the finished pieces. At this point, I had never considered a professional track in art but began to take the idea more seriously as my first few commissioned paintings snowballed into ten, then twenty, then nearly fifty in my first year of business!
I stayed on the ranch for eight months post-divorce which was truly a blessing because in the midst of heartbreak and trauma, I had to get up and take care of over 250 animals every day, but by the end of my stay there, I was ready for a change of pace and for a setting that felt a little bit less isolating.
A handful of months after leaving the ranch and closing up shop in Santa Ynez (and moving back home to San Diego with my mom) I had the unique opportunity to move to Eastern Europe (very rural Hungary specifically) to pursue equestrian sport. I had just sold all of my earthly belongings except for some clothes, tack, art supplies, and my dog, of course, in an attempt to “clean slate it,” and figured why not. I hadn’t done a year abroad in school and was ready for life to throw me something completely different. The guy I had just started dating was moving back home to Europe and my 25 years old brain thought “of course, I should pack up my boots and dog and follow a boy to the other side of the world- what could possibly go wrong….”
The relationship lasted for about .5 seconds in Europe, but what I found was something completely spellbinding. Europe is really the place to be for sports horses. I had landed a job working for one of the top trainers in Hungary and it was as though I had been thrown onto a moving treadmill on horseback with ten different people yelling at me in a language I did not understand. I had downloaded an app and learned the basics like “where is the bathroom?” and “I’m hungry” but that was about it. Needless to say, the first six months was rugged. I felt SO isolated and even though the world around me was buzzing, not being able to communicate was like being in a deafening cone of silence. The two things I had that kept me moving forward, however, were the horses and art. I was able to paint in Europe for clients back at home and ship finished pieces to the US. I painted every single evening which majorly supplemented my income overseas. Navigating a post office in another language and country, however… that I don’t wish on my worst enemy.
I did, eventually, figure it all out and by the one year mark, I was communicating proficiently both at the post office and at competitions all over Eastern Europe. The travel schedule was heavy, but I was soaking up every minute of competing on extremely talented young horses. It was equal parts challenging and rewarding (and cold, SO cold), but after two years of life abroad, I was ready to move home (and paint a little closer to my clients). In early 2018, I put my life back into a handful of suitcases and Roscoe and I flew home to San Diego. It was absolute culture shock but in the warmest way possible (both figuratively and literally).
I have since built a wonderful business training horses out of Carmel Valley and have an adorable little bungalow and art studio in Del Mar where I paint roughly 150 portraits annually. I paint in watercolor and my specialty is pet portraits, although I often do commercial work (botanicals for skincare companies, logo design, etc.), home portraits, and fully custom wedding invitation design. I have also been in a loving and healthy relationship for four years (I let Roscoe choose this time… he makes better choices in men than I do) and we look forward to tying the knot in the next year!
I love what I do, it has been built on years of hard work and love and loss and everything in-between, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. My story is certainly unconventional, and I do look back at certain moments with side eye (refer to marriage at 23… yikes, girl), but I have been able to build a career for myself doing the things that I love the most. I am really proud of that and hope that my story inspires others to work tirelessly to pursue their passions.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been the rockiest of roads, which, admittedly, was partially due to my choices (don’t get married before you’re 30, LOL) but also largely due to unforeseeable circumstances (traumatic brain injury, etc.). I think I faced myself with a lot of challenging scenarios when I think back on my decision to manage the ranch alone and move abroad to the least Instagrammable set of coordinates on earth (think endless grey skies, pig farms, no hills, and cornfields as far as the eye can see), but they are also the decisions that shaped me the most. Most people look at me, a 5 foot tall brunette chick in yoga pants and flip flops (if not dirty riding clothes) and have no idea that I have spent a lot of nights alone on thousands of acres shooting at coyotes circling my heifers in labor in hopes of an easy midnight snack (I have a very complicated relationship with the right to bear arms…).
When I moved back to San Diego in 2018, I felt like I had just climbed a mountain barefoot in the snow uphill both ways and settled into a dreamland paradise that was almost too perfect. I acquired my Realtors license and dabbled in real estate finance for a very short period of time. An agent in a brokers office makes a remark to me along the lines of “why don’t you come back here when you’re 30 and have a little life experience under your belt.” As much as I wanted to throat punch this jerk, I chose the path of non-violence and took a moment of silence to be thankful for my skincare routine and years of militant sunscreen application and quit the job that day.
My life experience and the challenges I had overcome didn’t lend themselves to an office job and probably never will. I went right back to training horses and painting full time and have not regretted it a single moment since. Accepting who I am and what I love has been a challenge in and of itself, and I will probably always be re-defining myself, but I hope at this point I am through trying to fit myself into a box that clearly doesn’t fit.
I have gotten pretty good at relating my current struggles to things I have overcome in my past and drawing on that strength to overcome whatever it might be. I have learned that challenges are just as much a part of life as breathing and having a healthy relationship with tough moments is critical.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The artist in me has to pinch myself every day. Animals and painting are lifelong passions, and I get to do it for work- a dream come true! It took me a while to find my unique style and “my” medium. For the first few years, I completed portraits in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, but for the last handful of years, I work strictly in watercolor. I will from time to time bust out my oils or do some pen work for my personal collection, but I have found such an incredible relationship with watercolor that there is no question- I am a watercolor artist. It also makes more sense from a logistical standpoint. I can complete a portrait in 2-6 hours, which is much more time effective and I can realistically complete up to 5 portraits a week. From a business person lens, this is where my profit is maximized and I am thrilled it happens to be my favorite medium.
I am known for my pet portraits! I have painted hundreds of dogs and horses (and cats, the occasional exotic, and once even a flying pig). I really love conveying realism through watercolor, so eyes and hair texture is my forte. It has taken a lot of time to get to this point, but I am really proud of my work and my style.
I think my portraits set me apart from others because of the attention to detail. Most people think watercolor and envision broad ombre strokes and washed out abstract shapes, but my work is detailed and as close to photo-real as I can get it. It has been so fun to develop my signature look.
With the horses, I work with riders who have or lease their own horses and are working towards specific jumping goals. We compete locally at the moment but might eventually get back on a bigger show circuit and chase points and awards, but for now, and especially after such an intense stint in Europe, I am thoroughly enjoying a more laid-back approach with fun and safety at the core.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
A healthy triad of Kindness, “go with the flow,” and self-respect.
Choosing kindness has never lead me wrong. The harder learning curve, however, is choosing when to lend myself kindness first.
It has been a wild ride, and I could have manifested deal-breaking roadblocks at every turn, but I have always found ways to summon happiness and get flexible when things get sticky.
I think people spend too long with the wrong people/things in their corner. If it isn’t adding to my best self, whether it is a project, a person, a horse, an energy, I politely revoke its invitation to be in my sphere and create space for the right things. That is the most respect I can give myself; an environment to thrive and the freedom to not feel guilty about it.
Pricing:
- Portraits start at $150 for a 6″x8″
- $300 for a 8″x10″
Contact Info:
- Email: info.saltwatercolor@gmail.com
- Website: www.saltwatercolor.art
- Instagram: @salt.water.color
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SaltWaterColor-111034886941347
