Sandolore’s Inversion: From Wax and Wire to Word and Wonder
The CHOW interview: The experimental visual artist-turned-writer speaks with Vince about her creative origins, reawakening the written voice, and curating fiction with radical emotional resonance.
This month’;s guest on Creative Hero On Writing (CHOW) is Sandolore Sykes, a fiction and personal essay writer, artist, and editor of the Substack zine SUM FLUX.
Born in Milwaukee, United States, Sandolore is a fiction writer and visual artist living in Charente, France. Her artistic work spans installations, live video performances, and abstract video animations. She studied poetry and fiction in college before turning full-time to her art. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.
Recently, she returned to writing with her Substack collection The Inversion Field, and through editing SUM FLUX, which invites writers of all genres to explore their most experimental voices.
Sandolore, welcome!
[SS] Hello, Vince!
[VW] You have spent much of your life focused on visual artistry. What prompted you to move toward written expression?
[SS] That’s such a hard question, but the simple answer is that I think I was a writer first. I’ve kept a journal since I was eight. I wrote short stories—an epic one about a possessed boat, baseball stories, and lots of fantasy with unicorns and sorcerers.
Writing is in my family. My father and grandfather are both nonfiction writers. I always say I was trained to be a writer from an early age. My father and I would play in imaginary worlds, lots of medieval fantasy, and I was a voracious reader.
In college, I studied poetry and fiction. I did about eight years of undergrad because I kept wanting to study new things. I had an incredible poetry teacher I keep in touch with. But around 25 or so, I hit a huge writer’s block. I was reading so much—Dostoevsky, in particular—and I became paralyzed by self-criticism.
I decided to take a writing break. I was living in an artist collective in a nasty old mechanics’ garage in Tucson, where I created an elaborate spray-painted doorway for my room based on scripts from different languages. I was working as a secretary for a tree service where I had no real work to do, so I just played with their Xerox machine all day, doing double exposures and drawings. I did my first “art show” with my copy art on the walls of our collective space. Then I just kept going and eventually ended up at RISD, fully immersed in art. Even my Watson Fellowship (after art school) was a writing project: an elaborate multi-dimensional sci-fi novel with video elements.
Coming back to writing now feels more like coming home than a new direction.
[VW] Have you found benefits to you as a visual artist? Are they complementary?
[SS] I think my answer here is probably obvious. Years of visual art have really honed my ability to see. I’m a very visual creature, and I think that comes through in my writing as very imagistic fiction.
Visual art also made me experimental. I’ve been working in abstract, experimental modes for years. So I wasn’t going to jump straight into traditional genre fiction. I’m drawn to pushing boundaries and trying different ways of telling stories.
The two practices are complementary, but they use entirely distinct parts of my mind. Visual art is physically strenuous and repetitive: hours of carving, soldering, drawing. For example, I made this huge wax piece, 20 large panels of lattice-like wax that I had to seam together. I spent hours carving and smoothing those seams. While I’m doing that kind of work, my mind is in a kind of trance, telling myself stories in my head.
When I look back at those pieces, I can still see the stories embedded in them, like mnemonic device maps. Writing, on the other hand, requires my whole mental capacity. I can animate or carve for 14 hours straight when tired, but I can’t write unless I’m fully lucid.
Writing takes everything. They’re different modes of being for me, but not unrelated. They’re two distinct territories of Sandolore.
[VW] Is the process similar between the two or are you forging new neural pathways?
[SS] Definitely forging new pathways. Visual art is often more unconscious. I usually only understand the whole idea after a project is done. I begin larger projects with an idea that fascinates or obsesses me and see where the idea leads me.
Writing, while also a wandering surprise, requires full awareness and deliberate shaping. That said, I often have no idea where my characters come from. I find the whole writing inspiration process mysterious. Sometimes it feels like opening the tap and watching the things stream out on their own. I am convinced that one day the two parts of my creative world will hybrid together, through theater and performance. I always have that hydra peeking at me from behind the shower curtain.
[VW] The Inversion Field is your own collection of short stories. How would you describe your genre or style?
[SS]
once described my work as “unsettling psychological fiction that explores identity, transformation, and the porous boundaries between self and others.”I’d say my style is sensory-rich. I tightly hone the prose in obsessive, excessively edited drafts. Drafts come out fast for me, but then I hammer at them forever. I think my fiction is quite dark—exploring what it feels like to be imprisoned in a body or an identity—but there’s always a sense of liberation.
My goal is for the writing to be transformative, even haunting. I want readers to shift how they see the world after reading. I want to make readers feel something. I’ve also realized I’m probably hypersensitive. My senses are very acute, sometimes problematically so. That intensity feeds my writing. I’m trying to give readers that visceral experience—maybe even wake their own senses. I’m fascinated by psychology: people’s motives, the expanse of how different minds experience life. Human vastness drives me.
[VW] What drew you to Substack to publish your fiction?
[SS] Substack changed everything for me. Last summer, while visiting my dad and stepmom, they told me about the success they were having with their own stacks. My ears perked up. When I left to travel through Scotland in a camper van, I decided to try it. I started writing posts from the road, and one of my early pieces about the journey blew up. That early boost gave me momentum. It felt like something I’d been waiting to do all along.
[VW] Do you have any desire to pull your stories together for an anthology to sell online?
[SS] Yes! Actually, this question might’ve planted the seed. I’ve been thinking about creating an anthology: ten really honed stories. I’d love to see my work on paper. Having a tangible object feels important. Like with a piece of art, I would love my little book to live in someone’s home, among the other books on their shelf. This feels really intimate to me.
I also entered a contest recently that offers support for larger projects. Since submitting, I’ve been spinning novel ideas. I’ll be publishing the initial bud in the open call for SUM FLUX Volume 4.
[VW] Congratulations on SUM FLUX. In only a few issues, you have curated quite a diverse and eclectic collection of stories based on the same prompt, What made you decide to push creative storytelling in this direction?
[SS] Thank you! Substack is amazing, but there’s almost too much content. I wanted SUM FLUX to be a magazine where you knew you’d find gold. On Substack, sometimes mediocrity can get boosted because we’re all so nice to each other. I wanted SUM FLUX to set a higher bar: a place curated for excellence, where you’d find fiercely good writing.
[VW] How has it met or exceeded your expectations?
[SS] It’s exceeded them, but it’s also been a huge challenge. The workload was totally unmanageable at first. We’ve since found a rhythm: fewer writers, more honed visuals, developmental editing. That feels like the right shape going forward.
[VW] What have you learned about writing by editing SUM FLUX?
[SS] So much. It’s like getting new glasses. I’ve become a better reader. I can see the architecture of a piece more clearly now, where the cracks are, what the writer’s really trying to say. I’ve also learned about generosity in writing. Many of us literary types like to withhold. We want to be mysterious, but we hold back too much and rob the reader of the experience. We want them to get it, but sometimes we haven’t handed them the decoding ring. I’m working on balancing openhandedness while still preserving enigma. I want to give the reader the breadcrumbs they need.
[VW] Where would you like to see it go?
[SS] I’d love SUM FLUX to become the premier place for great fiction on Substack. Imagine if it were like the Weekender, where everyone came to SUM FLUX for the good stuff. Since the “bestseller” and “top in whatever” lists are so dissatisfying, I would love for the Flux to become the go-to list.
SUM FLUX is not about numbers or money, but I would love someday to be able to pay writers and artists for their contributions and host contests with cash on the winning end. I would also love to see SUM FLUX in print and make it the zine it was calling itself in the beginning.
[VW] What’s next for you? Any plans for a novel or larger project?
[SS] I’m a machine of ideas. I can’t stop them. Give me a prompt and I’ll have a story laid out before I’m done doing the dishes. I’m thinking a lot about the long form right now. Short stories can feel constricting to me. If my story ends up at 2k words, I can promise you the draft was 7k. A novel would give me the breathing room to really go into the elaborate inner landscapes I visit when I am writing.
I have a big story I want to tell—something dense, full of all my favorite themes. Someday I hope to bring all these strands—visual art, writing, theater, and performance—together in one place. For now the goal is: keep writing, keep getting better.
[VW] Congratulations on your success. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
[SS] Thank you so much. I’m honored to be part of this!
If you’re tasting the Salted Wetzel for the first time…
Welcome! My name is Vince Wetzel. I’m the author of two novels and write this weekly Substack, which includes fiction, fridge philosophies, interviews with other authors, and more. Enjoy, and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date.
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Thank you for being part of this journey—now let’s lose ourselves in the story once again.
Celebrating Juneteenth
Six years ago, I knew Juneteenth existed. Ask me what it signified, I may have said, “Some African American thing.”
Right? In sixteen of elementary, high school, and college education, Juneteenth was never brought up. It wasn’t until George Floyd and the shock to the system it caused that I opened myself up to care. That’s on me.
Juneteenth, celebrated yesterday, is a special day that marks the end of slavery in the United States. It all began in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that the Civil War was over and all enslaved people were finally free. This news came two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which had declared freedom for enslaved individuals in Confederate states, but it took time for that freedom to be fully realized.
Today, Juneteenth is a vibrant celebration of African American culture and history. People come together for parades, family gatherings, and educational events, honoring the resilience and contributions of Black Americans. In 2021, it became an official federal holiday, highlighting its importance in our nation’s story. Juneteenth is not just about looking back; it’s also a reminder of the ongoing journey toward equality and justice for all.
For me, it’s also a reminder of all I don’t know outside my bubble of a middle-class, middle-aged heterosexual white male. Like everything else in life, education is a participatory activity. In order to understand, one must seek opportunities to learn. Empathy doesn’t happen in a bubble. One must be open to vulnerability and new experiences. Juneteenth is a time for me to assess and recommit myself.