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About

I was born in September 1999 in San Diego and every time we pass by the hospital after, my mother points out the stork standing tall on top of its parking garage. I grew up tracing comic books and painting people, and eventaully I fell into printmaking in high school. As a result, I learned how to create fine details and often played with printing multiple images on top of eachother. Looking back, the images stretched and faded into eachother which lended itself into my love for surrealist art. 

By 2022, I recieved my BA in Book Arts at the University of California Santa Barbara which synthesized printmaking and bookbinding into one craft. These four years were integral for my growing interest in environmental studies. Compiling books that featured  topics like urban gardens and the importance of kelp forests, I focused on the importance nature has in our daily lives. There is too wide a gap between humans and the world we live in. Without proper care and respect, the loss of environment due to climate change and the anthropocene will affect us beyond our comfortable control. 

When COVID swiped my printing studio space in undergrad, I looked for other artistic outlets which led me to a work study in my local ceramics community. I love messy living and through ceramics, I got to roll in dirt while providing an outlet for making. Working and learning in the community, I stayed for over a year until an end of college crisis struck me silly and I applied for graduate school. I now attend Southern Illinois University Carbondale for an MFA in ceramics, turing my self-taught creativity into a professionally educated practice. I took my interest in the environment with me and continue to attempt to emulate nature's beauty as a reminder that as nature turns its head towards us, we mold it into the scene we want it to be.

Education 

2018 - 2022

University of California, Santa Barbara

2022 - 2025

University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale

Grants

2021

Kelly Fellowship, Santa Barbara

Exhibitions 

Solo

2022

Unchecked, College of Creative Studies Gallery

2022

Paints and Pots, College of Creative Studies Art Gallery

Group

2023

Wichita National Ceramic Juried Exhibition 2023, Reuban Saunders Gallery

2023

Merge, NCECA Exhibition Cincinatti

2023

Art Over Easy, Surplus Gallery at Southern Illinois University

2022

Paper & Clay, 2022 Paper & Clay Juried Exhibition, Logan, UT

2022

UCSB Reads Climate Change Exhibition, University of California Santa Barbara Library

2020

2020

Book Arts Exhibition, College of Creative Studies Gallery

Flight - What Migratory Birds Show Us, Nine Gallery, Portland, OR

Curatorial and Artist Projects

2022

Social Print Lab, Collaborative exhibition at Stearns Wharf, Santa Barbara, CA

2020

Book Arts Exhibition, College of Creative Studies Gallery, CA

(Co-organized with Ka- Bang Lauron, Finley Mullen, Owen Jenkins, Maddy Galas, Ruby Mandell, and Linda Ekstrom)

2019

To Preserve, Collaborative artist book edition given to Special Research Collection Library, Davidson Library, CA

2019

A Sense of Home, Letterpress printing collaboration with an After-Care-Foster community, Hawthorne, CA

© 2023 by Sarah Willes and the power of chai lattes

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