For our second interview of the 2020 Delaware Fun-A-Day, we talk to mixed media artist and educator Sarah Dressler about fantasy art, calligraphy and dollmaking, artist conventions and festivals, and where to take art classes and workshops! Thanks, Sarah!
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We like to know how people are connected to Delaware Fun a Day - are you a resident, born and raised? What opportunities have you found being in the exhibit?
I was born & raised in Delaware County, PA, but I’ve lived in Delaware since 1995. I’ve made friends and I’ve used some of my first Fun a Day projects to help get into a gallery.
This is going to be your FOURTH year participating! Can you describe your favorite past Fun-A-Day project?
Each of the 3 projects I’ve done in the past have called on different skill sets and I enjoyed them all. My first year I focused on a word a day; some of the pieces were calligraphy only, some were a combination of illustration and calligraphy and some were word art blending the two. The second theme was collective animal nouns like “army of ants” or “troop of kangaroos.” It was a lot of researching the collective nouns and choosing which ones inspired the illustrations and the lettering.
My last project sort of got away from me, I made a new pattern for felt animals each day. In the end I think I made over 100 hand sewn creatures, as I didn’t allow the day’s project to be done until I produced a finished feltie that I was reasonably pleased with. If I have to choose one, I think the collective animal nouns it was the most amusing.
As a mixed media artist, doing everything from calligraphy to doll-making, what do you find to be your most rewarding medium? Is there a medium where you feel you can be your most expressive?
Mixed media describes my body of work more than most of my individual pieces. I like working in a lot of different materials and using a variety of different techniques. Making art dolls often brings together many of my skills, especially when I opt to make them part of a more complicated set piece. I think I’m most expressive when making art dolls, but they take several days to make so they don’t lend themselves to creating one a day. Recently a lot of my time has been on fiber arts and teaching, but I’m really looking forward to working with ink and paint for the month of February.
To a casual observer, and fan of your work, it seems you are most inspired by Celtic and possibly Anglo-Saxon cultures. Do you feel this to be true? Tell us about some of your favorite cultures to work with artistically.
My mother was born & raised in Scotland and never gave up her British citizenship, so I think the connection to those cultures comes very naturally. I’ve done a lot of calligraphy and painting in modern and historical styles from all over Europe and the Middle East. I really enjoy working in the style of medieval books of hours, it’s fun to challenge myself to learn about the materials and techniques that were perfected by our artistic ancestors.
There is something fun about mixing modern texts with the style of a 15th century Dutch artist. Many of my art dolls are inspired by mythology and fairytales. Looking at historical masterworks of calligraphy and illumination and stories which have been told for centuries give me a different way of looking at the modern world we live in. Some of my work is just intuitive creations of the moment, some are serious reflections on the human condition and some are just whimsical.
The current zeitgeist seems to be getting darker and darker and I occasionally explore the dark side but more often I seem to be trying to bring color and whimsy to my work and hope to brighten the bits of the world that can view my work.
Please describe your 2020 project "Intuitive Abstracts".
This time last year a friend of mine came back from a sabbatical and shared some work she was exposed to, in a workshop in Arizona, that she thought resonated with much of my work. The words that seemed to connect the workshop & some of my work were “intuitive” and “abstract” so I’m using them as a jumping off point. I’ve been exploring loosening up my more formal training and the formality of much of my calligraphic work. The pieces I’ve done in this new method starts with a series of quick bold swashes of color followed by filling in all of the remaining white space with a series of lines, simple shapes and more complicated patterns as inspired by the space being filled in.
As a well-seasoned Delaware Fun-A-Day participant, what advice can you give our newcomers? Is there any piece of advice that you believe would be a top priority for rookies to take a hold of?
Plan a project you know you can finish, and manage your time. The first year I finished several pieces really close to midnight and it was stressful. The next two years I spent some time before the first making day and planned out my month. I made a calendar of the daily projects with the easiest ones on days I knew would be busy. If a day comes that you just can’t finish don’t panic, keep going and on a less busy day you can get caught up.
We know you participate in a lot of fantasy themed events, such as FairieCon in Baltimore. Tell us more about this event from the artist perspective. Do you have other favorite events you’d like to tell us about?
FaerieCon and New York Faerie Festival are very dear to my artist’s heart. They can be expensive to participate in when you take in the cost of the vending space and travel/accommodation & food expenses. But, it’s been worth it to be surrounded by people who share a love of the fantastic. There is a community of artists and patrons who regularly participate in fantasy festivals and conventions. Beyond the artistic inspiration of being around other artists who share inspiration in mythology, fairy tales & fantasy it is inspiring to watch the patrons and the level of creativity that they pour into their attire.
Faerie festivals are not like most “cosplay” gatherings in that few people are playing a specific character, they generally create their own character or just let their imaginations soar and create garments and makeup that create very individual statements. Some patrons have several outfits for each day. Events like this fill my artistic soul with inspiration and energy to keep pushing myself to try new things. The discussions with other artists and with patrons give me a clearer insight as to how my work is received by people beyond my friends and family. These events are both inspiring and energizing.
But, I also like to participate in art festivals with a broader range of patrons; like Arts Fest at Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center. Arts Fest juries artists from all over the world and the setting is stunning, through their affiliation with the Smithsonian the sculpture park is a combination of “forest bathing” and visiting a gallery.
Have those events influenced your art, and steered you in the fantasy direction, or did those events simply give your innate art preference a spotlight?
My first art dolls were faeries and mermaids, after my son urged me to make something less “girly” so I branched out to goblins, trolls & dragons. While many of them were received by local audiences with amusement they were not finding homes. So I started to seek out an audience that my work resonated with more precisely. While I searched for events where I thought my work would resonate well I have also learned a lot from doing these shows.
Some things that I thought would be a big hit turned out to be largely ignored while some things I did as a whim and thought I’d just put it out and see what people thought and they sold out with some very enthusiastic patrons. If something is a hit I will continue to explore making variations on that theme, if it failed to get a response but I think it was good I may make tweaks and alter it, or make variations that I think will improve it, if upon deliberation I don’t have faith that it was the right direction to go in artistically I will put it aside and I might revisit it later or just move on to other themes or materials and techniques.
Throughout the year you regularly teach art related workshops. Would you like to tell us more about the places you teach at and perhaps what we can expect to learn from you at those locations in 2020?
Most of my teaching takes place in The Art Studio/Absolom Jones and for the County libraries, but I also teach workshops for The Newark Arts Alliance, The Palette & The Page, in Elkton, MD, and for the Center for the Creative Arts, in Yorklyn, DE. I’ve been teaching kids mixed media classes and camps for The Art Studio for over a decade, but I also teach a variety of workshops for teens/adults as well. Among the workshops I’ve taught in the last few years I’ve taught mandalas, bookbinding, monoprints, indigo dyeing, ice dying, nuno felting, and a variety of other techniques. In the fall of 2019 I have tested my motto “semper Gumbi” - “always be flexible” as I am now teaching all ages, the Creative Art Saturday program is a drop in art event that I lead at The Art Studio monthly, it’s aimed at ages 6 and up, but frequently I get to test my mettle and adapt the project on the fly for preschoolers and toddlers; I also had the privilege of teaching a 10 week fiber arts class at The Art Studio in conjunction with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute where most of my students were retired.
In March 2020 I will be teaching nuno felting for Sarafina Fiber Arts. Nuno felting is a fascinating process where super fine wool fibers are merged with fine silk to create a new blended fabric. At the moment dying silk and felting it occupies a lot of my artistic time and energy. The process of making a scarf takes 3-5 hours so it doesn’t lend itself to Fun-A-Day but I am glad that I’m finding places to share the process and the beauty of the finished results with people through teaching.
Anything else you’d like to share?
You never know where your inspiration and fascinations will come from. When I was in highschool I split my time between the visual & performing arts areas in school. The teacher who influenced & inspired me the most to be creative & to push myself to try new things, as well as teaching me the connections between history and the world we live in, was not my visual art teacher but my choir director David Hall. He introduced me to medieval music and art, decades later I found the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) which is an international recreation group that focuses on Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Elizabethan age.
When I found the SCA I was a stay at home mom doing wedding flowers on the side and suddenly I found an outlet for some of my creative impulses. In the SCA I discovered the “scribal arts” of calligraphy & illumination, and I return to making art regularly. I honed my calligraphy skills and refined my eye for details and my miniature painting skills. Within the SCA I also started teaching art workshops and spinning out from there I branched out into a wider variety of artistic expressions using those skills and I also started teaching more and more art forms to a wider range of people, but it all goes back to being inspired in high school.
Where can people see more of your work?
I am a member artist at The Palette & The Page in Elkton, MD where you can see some of my dolls, some of my calligraphy & painting as well as some of my ice dyed and my nuno felted silk scarves. There are a variety of my pieces in the members shop in the Newark Arts Alliance. I also have an Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/toadstoolsntreestump/ with a range of my work, including a few of my art dolls and other items.
