RM | NEIGHBORS Alcohol ink artist Sherry Salant shows off a painting of Clydesdales inside her studio, H-art and Soul, which features her unique, free-fl owing paintings. A blank canvas Artist creates unique pieces using alcohol ink by Paul Newton | pnewton@ruralmissouri.coop herry Salant had a mystery to solve. The recently retired educator was attending a show in St. Louis about a decade ago when a piece of art from one of the vendors caught her eye. " It was so cool. It looked like stained glass, not like paint, " she says. " I stopped and asked her what she was doing and she wouldn't tell me. " Sherry put on her journalist hat from her time at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and found the artist's name and began researching. " There was this obscure article from a few years prior that had been written 34 RURAL MISSOURI | SEPTEMBER 2022 about her, " Sherry says. " I saw the two words 'alcohol ink' in the story. I had never heard about it. " A decade later, organic alcohol ink is Sherry's primary medium. The Lake Saint Louis artist's paintings cover the walls at her gallery, H-art and Soul, in the St. Louis Premium Outlet in Chesterfi eld. Art runs deep in Sherry's family. Her grandfather was a sculptor and her mother was a docent at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Her father was an avid art collector and would bring Sherry and her sister to New York with him a few times a year where they would be immersed in the arts. " He was good friends with Thomas Hart Benton and in