When Routt County artist Sandi Poltorak meets someone new, she may keenly observe the shape of their eyes and note their facial proportions.
Those are skills she learned years ago during comprehensive FBI composite sketch training at Quantico and that she honed during 12 years of forensic artist duties for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Sitting at a drawing table this week in her shared art studio, she looked through facial sketches she created of accused or convicted perpetrators. She read past media releases that law enforcement agencies issued along with her composite pencil drawings to ask the public to help find accused criminals.
That emotionally draining work required hours of back-and-forth sketching and interviewing skills with victims and sometimes ended up with Poltorak crying too with the victims. In addition to her forensic lab duties, for 12 years she traveled around the state of Tennessee helping to create images of up to 600 wanted individuals. She also created facial reconstruction composites from human skulls and age-progression drawings of long-sought criminals.
Poltorak retired from forensics in 2011 after 29 years in the field, and now her years of detailed work help her create photo-realistic artwork of animals and people. Viewing the realism and life in the eyes of a buffalo or owl that Poltorak draws, viewers may think they are looking at a wildlife photograph.
“Sandi’s attention to detail, precise handling of her pencil and powers of observation lead to her outstanding photo-realism skills,” said Joanne Orce, a fellow artist at Pine Moon Fine Art Gallery in Steamboat Springs.
“Forensic artists need to be able to capture subtle proportions and features that make for a convincing resemblance of the subject,” Orce said. “Sandi brings those skills into our gallery in all forms of subject matter including rodeo clowns, animals, birds, houses and Native American people. To do what she does requires a level of patience, endurance and foresight that is aided by her forensic background.”
After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and criminology from Florida State University, Poltorak worked in the trace evidence section for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation forensics lab examining such evidence as gunshot residue, hair, fiber, paint, glass, fire debris, and shoe and tire tracks.
When the CSI Crime Scene Investigation television shows became popular, the lab team told the law enforcement officers to stop watching, Poltorak said. Even with advances in technology, the real forensics work is not as specific and speedy as depicted on television.
When the bureau sent out a request for an employee who would like to train to become a sketch artist, Poltorak volunteered based on her childhood affinity for drawing and natural talent, despite having no formal art training. So, she trained with the FBI and took basic drawing classes.
She said when victims moved past the initial trauma on to anger, they worked intensely with sketch artists. Recollecting is easier than remembering, Poltorak explained, so the victims start by identifying similar facial features from an FBI book of faces. The process starts with the artist drawing a head shape, then eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth and chin.
At the end of a drawing session, just like on television, Poltorak held up the sketch and said, “Is this the guy?” The responses from victims could be visceral.
“You always knew you drew a good one if they almost retched for their reaction when seeing the final product,” she said.
“Composite work is mentally draining as well, asking people to go back to their worst day,” said Poltorak, 65. “It’s pretty sad what people can do to each other. When I retired in 2011, I knew it was time to get on the happy side of life.”
Remembering happy times during skiing vacation visits, Poltorak was inspired to move to Steamboat in 2013. She steeled herself to approach a gallery before she let herself go skiing. With limited fine art experience, she approached the owners of former Circle 7 Fine Art Gallery, who invited her to present her work. That set her on her current artistic path.
Poltorak is an expert in graphite pencil techniques and smudging with blending stumps while using 15 different types of pencils. Her detailed work includes everything from private commissions to collaborative work on a mural for Sleeping Giant School.
“Her current works shows that extra dimension that she brings to her piece because of her honing in on details and listening to people describing things,” said collaborating artist Jennifer Baker.
Baker is highly complimentary of collaborator Poltorak as a talented, perceptive artist and authentic, selfless person.
“I have a huge amount of respect for the work that Sandi creates and the professionalism in which she works,” Baker said. “People come into your life, and they just make your heart smile. And she is one of them.”
