“Color. Line. Texture. Imagery. Stories. Being part of the tradition of quilting and part of the future of quilting! The act of creating. Making the pictures in my head become real. These are some of the things that spur me to create!” says Sarah Ann Smith, the September Artist of the Month at the Camden Public Library. Her exhibit, “C3: Color, Cloth Collage,” will be on display in the Picker Room at the library through the month of September. There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, September 8, 4:00-6:00 pm, all are welcome.
Smith has often said, “My birthplace was a geographical accident: I should have been born in Maine! After living all over the world and moving way too many times, I finally found home when we arrived in Maine. Its every day beauty in all seasons inspire my work, as do my family and our animals.
“Playing with color, cloth, dye, paint, line, shape, form, light, and shadow is simply pure joy. I want to share this passion to create and the quilts that I make,” she continued, “and to show people that they, too, can be creative. My subject matter varies. I find the challenge of capturing a representation of a person (or a part of them, like their hands) to be one of the hardest things I could do, and I love it when I actually get the image in my head into the cloth successfully. I am always learning.
“After making portraits for a time, I am feeling a pull to return to landscape and nature. Lurking in the back of my head is the tiny seed of a larger story, to create a new place or world—perhaps infused by the fiction I read and mythologies from various cultures. Inspiration is everywhere, we just need to be open to receive it and transform it into art.
“As far as the actual techniques, I use whatever I need to achieve the desired effect including dyeing, painting, hand and machine quilting, embroidery, embellishment with beads, yarns, and any suitable object, piecing, and appliqué. I stitch intensively on my home sewing machine with a variety of threads.”
Background
Before Smith found her avocation in art quilting, she graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service; worked as a Legislative Assistant for a U.S. Congressman in Washington, D.C.; earned a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass.; volunteered in Guinea-Bissau with Operation Crossroads Africa; met her soon-to-be-husband, and became a U.S. Foreign Service Officer (diplomat). Sarah’s first tour with the U.S. Foreign Service was in Toronto, Canada, where she took her first drawing classes while living across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Finally, fate picked up a thimble: while assigned to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Sarah came across someone’s discarded Keepsake Quilting catalog, which opened up the doors to the quilting world. After returning to the States in 1991, her first son was born and, in 1997, the Smith family opted out of the rat race. Just as her husband was ready to retire and Sarah resigned from the Foreign Service to raise their family, their second son was born. From 1998 to 2004 they lived on San Juan Island, an island paradise 20 miles off the coast of Washington State. While there, Sarah began her own business doing custom sewing for the home, providing great experience in creating one-of-a-kind patterns for home decorating projects.
A quest for better schooling for the boys led the family to Camden, Maine, in 2004, where Sarah relishes the supportive environment for fiber art and art quilts. In 2011 the family moved to Hope, Maine. Sarah considers herself most fortunate to have two wonderful sons, a husband who believes in her art, and to be able to do what she loves—sew and make art.
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