Sarah Newberry
Since my youth, my parents instilled in me a reverence for the earth and a love for nature. This love and reverence remains within me today. My ceramic forms reflect details discovered during my adventures in local wildlife areas both in Michigan and New Mexico. This work conveys my love for nature and for those who share my adventures outside.
Year round I often retreat to local areas with hopes of being alone and to find silence. However, silence is not a word the woods, open fields, rocky mountainsides will know. Stopping for a moment to listen in the woods will reveal anything but stillness. A busy moment among animals collecting food, or plants and grasses rustling in a calm wind creates a sense of serenity my work also conveys.
Objects discovered during my adventures in local wildlife areas inspire these ceramic forms. This work conveys my love for nature and the beautiful details of small plants that are often overlooked. The product of flowers, the dry seedpods, are often unseen and disregarded; fruit release their seeds and when they become an empty shell, they are most remarkable to me. The interior of the fruit is just as appealing as the outside because of their contrasting color, appearance, and purpose.
Memories made with my family playing on the beaches of Lake Michigan are often represented in my work. I have spent countless hour picking through rocks and sand at Lake Michigan to find the most brilliant shell to take home. The never-ending wave-formed ripple marks created by the water in the sand have always amaze me.
Other significant memories are long walks taken with my sister and dog through grassy fields in Michigan. A cool breeze gently flowing through the tree leaves and into the grassy field looks like an ocean twirling the grasses around the brilliant wildflowers.
My work will continue to reflect my appreciation for nature, its preciousness, and the sense of serenity it conveys. Through focusing on natural life, its preciousness, and the simplistic beauty in unseen details my work will continue to grow with my connection with nature.
