Sara grew up in New York, on Long Island, and after attending college at the University of Buffalo, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived for over 20 years. A job opportunity brought her to the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas in 1995 where she raised her 2 children, and once they were grown and living on their own, she realized a dream come true when she moved to Santa Fe, NM in 2017.
Sara’s career as an artist started through her love of sewing. She began sewing in her 7th grade home economics class and loved creating her own clothing and wearable art using fabric as her medium. Her passion for sewing grew into more creative endeavors when she began to make art quilts in 2002, while working for a major sewing machine manufacturer as a creative consultant. While creating art quilts, she developed a unique quilting template system called the Sew Inspired Design System which she has manufactured and marketed to the quilting industry worldwide for the past 20 years. In 2007 Sara wrote a book called “Spinning Pinwheel Quilts” which was published nationwide to help promote her template system. In the process of creating fabrics for her art quilt, she also began to design fabric for a major New York fabric manufacturer, which she did either on her computer or by painting on fabric with fabric paints. Once Sara got that paintbrush in her hand, she was hooked, and found a new passion for painting which she now combines with her Fiber Art.
Sara has had several solo exhibitions over the last 10 years in galleries and public forums mostly when she was living in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. One of her solo exhibitions was called “From Stitches to Strokes” and shows Sara progression from an art quilter to an abstract painter. Sara has won numerous awards for her art quilts and paintings including her award for "Best in Show" by the City of Keller, at their annual art competition.
Artist Statement
I am happiest when I am creating with color - the brighter the better. During the pandemic I enjoyed getting back to my roots as a fiber artist with my newest series called “Out of the Box.” I found with my sewing machines and working with fabric and fiber. Bursting outside the edges of the canvas became a metaphor for escaping the confines of my studio and home for so long.
My latest process in creating these works usually starts at the computer creating digital art. Then I use my large format printer to transfer my design onto fabric which I then continue to enhance with needle felting of wool & silk fibers and embroidering with my sewing machine to add texture. I never have a plan in my head when I start my pieces; they eventually emerge into the final works. Sometimes they call for 3-D elements to be added, and sometimes they need extensions past their canvas edges.
The bright colors in nature inspire and energize me which comes through in all my art media. I enjoy bringing texture and unexpected colors into my work, layering fabrics and fibers, and working with patterns, textures, geometric shapes, and curves. The flow of the connecting shapes and colors seem to take on a life of their own and represent the ups and downs we face every day, the fluidity of time, life’s changes and how the world and events shape each of us every day.
