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Artist-in-Residence:
Sara Jensen
Sara, a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, was raised in Carbondale, Colorado, where her connection to the outdoors and art evolved. "A sense of place is an integral part of who I am. Taking the time to learn from place is what has driven a want to create."
Sara spent her childhood outside exploring the mountains through skiing, biking, kayaking, hiking, and backpacking. While a student at RISD, she developed her art practice and passion for clay and as an artist-in-residence at Salem Art Works, she was able to dive into the world of wood firing.
Artist Statement
Clay fascinates me in the connection it creates between my hands and my mind. My hands become a translator between the clay and my mind. Working with clay is a dance where I can see the reflection of my own motion in the clay. Using this medium, I have been reflecting on my connections to place.
I have been using memory and the interactions of place to drive my work. I think about this process through two lenses. One is through the smaller scale observations and curiosities within
forces of the outdoors. Moments I am not directly involved in but intrigue me. For example, the way that water sculpts and moves land, the way light filters through canyon walls, and the interaction between the stone of a river bed and the water that flows through.
The other perspective comes through a larger lens of how these interactions have held memory and meaning within me. I have spent time reflecting through maps and routes I have traveled to
influence form. Creating rings of form dedicated to places and then melding them together. The combination of places which has come together to influence my life. These forms reflect motion
and the way I have moved through places. They have a sense of movement in the vain of breathing and nourishment. They reflect the way moving through an environment has cultivated meaning in my own life.
Click here to view Sarah Bartollota
