Liz: While you were talking about your travels through the US I do love the fact that you were born in Normal.

Sarah: Huh ha.

Liz: Isn’t that great.

Sarah: I know, I think we were only, we didn’t actual even live in Normal, we lived in Bloomington but I guess that was the closest hospital was in Normal so.

Liz: You can say I guess with legitimacy you are Normal. 

Sarah: Exactly.

Liz: But then you moved all around the country and you went to school in the big apple and did well and then came back down south and you’re in Savannah now, I love the fact that in your blog you mentioned that you wanted to come back to the land of boiled peanuts and sweet ice-tea.

Sarah:  Right.

Liz: Why does the south have the draw on you?

Sarah: I’m not sure, I think it’s because this is where I was raised, my family actually isn’t from the south they are from the Midwest but there’s just something about it and I have tried to live against it you know going up to New York for a while, we lived in Chicago but the south still just came through so it, you know I’m back.

Liz: I was looking on your web site and you describe your items as cute and quirky and the word eccentric also pops up in places, how would you describe yourself?

Sarah: Probably about the same way, I think that, um yes I think that, well actually I think that people would probably say that I’m a little bit sassy.  Which I don’t know, maybe its being the youngest of three, but I think I just got away with a lot more, so I perhaps I think  I look very sweet but maybe perhaps have a tendency to be a little more bold than perhaps other people on the staff would anticipate but otherwise you know very sweet.

Liz: Oh yeah, you look sweet, you probably got them all fooled that’s what I’m thinking.

Sarah: No definitely very sweet, but yes I’m not afraid to say what’s on my mind and I think that’s what make my pieces a little bit unusual is that it’s not just super saccharin sweet but I feel like that some of the pieces do have an unexpected edge than that you may not anticipate.

Liz: Well that photograph of you in the Home Companion article, it’s a great photograph, you’re wearing, it looks like, I don’t know maybe almost a little vintage frock.

Sarah: It is ah huh.

Liz: And we can see your tattoos.  So tell me what your tattoos say, what are they like.

Sarah: They’re actually designs that I drew that um, I don’t have the picture right in front of me. But I’m assuming you can see what’s on my wrist and on one on my right hand I have cross stitch heart made with little x’s and that was the first thing that my mother taught me how to sew was this little cross stitch heart that she then made into a pillow, and then the other two are just designs that I thought went with it.   Then the other wrist, although I usually claim it doesn’t mean anything, there is a star because Christmas is a time of year that’s an absolute favorite and then the rectangular shape is because my mother always told me that I lie like a rug.  And then I have a little cat bug at the bottom and that’s because my childhood nickname was the Cheshire Cat, my dad said I had the greatest, biggest smile which was all teeth, and then the other thing my mother used to tell me was to buzz off sometimes, because I think I was her shadow for quite a number of years. So that’s what you can see in that photo.

Liz: That’s great, so you made your body a work of art as well.

Sarah:  Yes.

Liz: Not just content to take the objects around you.

Sarah: That’s right.

Liz: And I love that you mentioned your making something mundane wonderful and as you look through the pieces that you have, there are thing in there that are just everyday objects that you’ve transformed.

Sarah:  Right, which I think outside of the little small clothespin people, that really are purely are decorative art objects most everything else that I sell I really think that you can use everyday, you know household items you know that I use and yes I’m transforming you know what we everyday into something beautiful at the same time.

Liz: I was going to ask you where you find your inspiration, but it seems like your brain clicks into motion at night a lot.  It doesn’t sound like you get a lot of sleep.

Sarah: I don’t although it comes and goes.   I would say definitely there are some nights where yeah you could stay up all night when you start getting ideas although for some of the, definitely for the little small clothes pin people, sometimes I’ll find a vintage object and then that will get my brain going.  I found a little bed or recently I found a little ladder and then that gets the ideas going for how I could make the little clothespin doll work with the actual object.  And then for the other objects that are in my site usually it comes from discovering a manufacturing process or printing process that is within my means to reproduce an item that I would like with my image on it.  So really the inspiration comes from finding a way to reproduce it that makes it at a price point that will sell but that allow me to put my image and drawings on to something that people can use every day.

Liz: Is your house filled with items that for whatever reason you did not think would either sell or you just loved so much you did not want to sell?

Sarah: I think the latter.   I love to much I can’t sell them,  I think that’s why when I was in art school I use to, you know when I was going for fine art degree and studio major, I thought well this is never going to work, I mean I’m not going to be able to sell anything which was one of the reason why I choose right out of school not to go you know try to get gallery representation solely and try to make that my sole income source because I knew that I would probably not be able to part with fifty percent of what I made so then that’s how the web site drawing came up and why the house is now full of things I’m not quite ready to let go of.

Liz: I love the fact that you have whimsical names to your art work.  I was looking through a few of the Thumb war battle of 1610 and the Sordid Dish and Spoon Saga, where did those come from?

Sarah: I don’t know, the Thumb Wars really came ‘cause I was thinking about the Thumb Prints because you know I had the Ed Emberley books when I was younger and made a million drawings of Thumb Prints and then I was doing some stuff with shops stationary with Thumb Prints, then I wanted to do a mural a large scale drawing with Thumb Prints and I started to think oh gosh, what can I do and usually sometimes the name of something, you  know, will trigger how the product will come out so I was thinking about you know Thumb Prints and then I was kind of obsessed with of playing Thumb War with people because I have this trick this technique that I use that I think if the person does not figure it out allows me to win about 97% of the time so I was thinking about playing all the things that started with Thumb or you know, I thought about when I thought about Thumb and Thumb Prints, and then Thumb Wars you know playing that game with the two hands came to mind so I thought it would be a riot to do a Thumb War Battle so that’s how that came about.

Liz: Ok and the Sordid, Dish and Spoon, that obviously was something that happened in the kitchen to you the night before?

Sarah: Actually I had those little wooden spoons you know that you used to use when you were a kid, you used to get them in school in the little ice cream tubs and when I was cutting them in half and drawing pictures on them and when I cut it in half it looked like a little dish to me and I thought oh well the nursery rhyme goes, ‘the dish ran away with the spoon’ but it was what happened next.  So then I did a series of drawing of what actually may have happened next to the dish and the spoon and sometime the relationship didn’t quite work out.

Liz: Oh see, that happens about 50% of the time they say.

Sarah: Yes.

Liz: Have you always worked in small scale?

Sarah: I either worked very small or I work very large and I think that not having, for a while I didn’t have a dedicated studio space so I tended, I did more of the small stuff.   I like things that even if I did a large scale drawing I like things that you have to get really close up on to see so thing that can fit in you hand is just what I gravitated more towards lately. It makes it, I’m usually sitting around when I’m doing it and it just feels right to me that scale.

Liz: Sarah thank you so much for the conversation, it’s been lovely.

Sarah: Thank you so much.

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