It’s really nice to meet you.

Hi. My name is Sarah and I am an artist, illustrator, actor, musician, singer, facilitator, and playwright (no - I can’t choose just one) based in Eastern Oregon on the traditional land of the Nimiipuu people. My work is deeply informed by place, by nature and by seasons and cycles, which I weave into my paintings, poems, plays, and multilayered creative offerings.

I am a product of my experiences. My life flows into this body of work in practical and also magical ways. I am so grateful for the pathways, events, and preoccupations of my life that have all provided the soil for the roots of my creative work to grow and spread.

I’ve been painting, telling stories, and calling on the muses as far back as I can remember. This is possibly one of my favorite photos from childhood (left). I am six or seven years old in my grandmother's art studio. She was a watercolorist and mother of six. My grandfather built this studio in a tiny attic space. The staircase that connected the studio to the main house was inside a closet. There's nothing more magical than a secret staircase inside a wardrobe that leads to an art studio. This studio was a haven of solitude and it belonged entirely and deliciously to my grandmother alone. It was during this time that I first understood the power of my own space and time.

I believe in the transformative power of story-telling.

Stories make us what we are and teach us how to live. I believe that theatre and stories should lead culture, not follow.

I believe that making art should be fun, indulge all of our deepest curiosities, and infuse our world with purpose and a collective sense of belonging.

I believe in the inherent worth of every living thing. And the best way to understand each other and foster empathy is to hear each other’s stories. I’m on a mission to unearth buried stories, resuscitate lost narratives, and share them in a way that shifts dominant culture.

I live in a state of curiosity.

Ever since childhood, I have been curious about people and their inner worlds. My parents raised me in and around our vibrant local theatre and it was a natural place to indulge my penchant for story-telling and imaginative play.

In college I studied creative writing, gender studies, and theatre. It was during this time that I was also introduced to community organizing and social justice work. I owe my life and work to the many queer Black womxn at Mills College who called me in, lovingly handed my ass to me in our gender studies class, and baptised me with the writings of bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldúa. They opened my eyes to the divine nature of right-relationship and transformed the trajectory of my life as an artist, change-maker, and activist. It was the beginning of an awakening that continues to this day. (You can learn more about my justice work below.)

“In a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.” — Louis Bogan

I am a product of the things which have happened to me. And while I am by nature a joyful person, this joy is hard-won.

My second child, Charlie, was born in 2010. Approximately 12 hours after he arrived, he began having seizures. An MRI revealed he had suffered two strokes affecting the right side of his brain. The strokes occurred in utero. Charlie's stroke may or may not be due to another condition he has called Craniosynostosis. This is when two skull plates fuse prematurely in the womb. We call Charlie the “joy-bomb” because he lights up the room. He experiences the world through a lens of Cerebral Palsy, Hemiplegia, and Epilepsy. He is a force of nature and I’m proud to be his Mama.

Art is how I alchemize despair and anguish into joy.

In 2015 I lost my only brother to an accidental opioid overdose. This loss was as painful as anything I’d ever experienced. It knocked the wind out of our family and sent my heart on a crash-course of despair.

I only mention these formative events as a way to share the inner workings of my healing and illuminate how this journey informs my work and my life. It’s all integrated. It’s all a part of what I make, what I paint, what I share, and what I write.

Collaboration is my medicine.

In addition to my life's calling as a multi-disciplinary artist, I also find great satisfaction and purpose in community organizing and collaborative partnerships. I serve locally on the board of United Community Partners and am also a 2021-22 fellow with the American Leadership Forum (ALF) of Oregon. I am also the co-founder, and resident playwright for Moderate Woo, a feminist, anti-racist storytelling collective. I am also a founding member of StateraArts, a non-profit dedicated to equity and advancement for womxn and non-binary artists. I served as Statera’s Creative Director from 2015-2018 and as Operations Director from 2019-2020.

Let’s make something entirely new together!

• Become a patron of my work

• Schedule a one-on-one creative consultation

• Commission a painting

• Invite me to speak at your upcoming event
  

I have articulated my work’s purpose and focus below as a way of remaining accountable to my community and connected to my mission-driven work. I acknowledge that these are just words and that the real work manifests in how I impact my collaborators, clients, and community. Thank you for being a part of that accountability. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have thoughts you’d like to share. I am open and welcome your feedback.

My Mission:

I liberate myself and those around me by using art to alchemize pain and confusion into joy and connection.

My Manifesto:

This is our invitation to the revolution. 
This is our invitation to transform.

We are at the beginning of a great turning — a cellular shift that summons human-kind to love one another back to wholeness. This call comes not from some ethereal place, but directly from the Earth herself. 

Synchronizing our innate creativity with the Earth’s cycles is the surest pathway I know to catalyzing that transformational love. Cultivating this kind of radical creative harmony shatters isolation, despair, and consumerism. 

Our creativity is a gift, given to us by the universal mother. It is a birthright, meant to be wielded with great love and joy in the face of pain, trauma, and destruction. Our innate creativity is a bone-deep tool for healing, justice, and revelatory collective liberation. 

My North Star:

Your innate creativity will transform the world. 
Step into the center of your knowing 
and alchemize your pain into joy. 

It will set us all free.

My Justice Lens:

Our liberation is bound together. It is interconnected, interdependent, and collective.

TANGIBLE COMPONENTS — business practices that honor right-relationship, serve to counteract supremacy structures and create access:

• Equity pricing (Creative Alchemy Cycle)

• Actionable Land acknowledgement (on my home page) and clear monthly donation cycle as part of my reparations budget to cultural programming led and managed by those within the Nimmipuu (Nez Perce) community. Please see the “transparency in spending & support” list below.

• All one-on-one coaching sessions are sliding scale / free for those whose voices have been historically marginalized and silenced, and are therefore underrepresented. This means non-white, queer, people with disabilities (visible and non-visible), and people who cannot typically access these kinds of programs due to prohibitive cost and/or cultural insensitivity.

• Center BIPOC and queer wisdom and voices in teaching materials

• Transparency in spending & support (scroll down for full list)

• Inclusive and accessible website

ACCOUNTABILITY — practices that align my work with my justice-forward mission:

• Continuing education and engagement with BIPOC & queer teachers / facilitators

• Actively decolonize my bookshelf, teaching materials, kitchen, relationships

• Catalyst Cohort Engagement

• Handle my mistakes publicly and with transparency 

• Clear invitations for feedback and a timely response process

• Ongoing donations to BIPOC and queer businesses / orgs and

• I’ve made the Anti-racist Small Business Pledge for building an equitable, anti-racist business (Here is a PDF of that pledge)

VISIONING FORWARD — I want the impact of my work to manifest in the following ways:

• Co-create pathways to right-relationship

• Offer nourishing antidotes to supremacy structures

• Co-create sustainable alternatives to Capitalism

• Honoring matriarchal wisdom and women & femme voices

• Get us all FREE

BIPOC Educators and Facilitators:

As an able-bodied, neurotypical, white, cisgender woman, I am devoted to a life-long journey of learning and self-interrogation as it pertains to my privilege. I am committed to partnering with BIPOC leadership in the fight for justice. This continual awakening requires accountability partners, facilitators, and teachers. These are some of the people who influence and inform my allyship:

• Tracy Brown is a teacher and facilitator shifting the diversity and inclusion conversation from politics and personality to results and relationships. Her book Mine To Do is a foundational text for me. I first met Tracy in Dallas, TX and have attended her workshops in person as well as online. Tracy is a brilliant facilitator and works with businesses and organizations on inclusion strategies that WORK. Hire her HERE.

• Myriam Joseph Loeschen is an intuitive coach, healer, and storyteller, committed to reframing and changing narratives. Y’all need to do yourself a favor and hire her HERE. Myriam is part of the Catalyst Cohort I work with on a regular basis.

• Ajuan Mance is a professor of African American literature at Mills College and a lifelong artist and writer. I first encountered Ajuan as a student at Mills College. Their guidance and insight has and continues to help me align my work with a justice lens.

• adrienne maree brown is an author, doula, women's rights activist and Black feminist. Their book Emergent Strategies is a seminal text for my work as a facilitator and artist. You can find adrienne on Instagram.

• Sonya Renee Taylor is the Founder and Radical Executive Officer of The Body is Not An Apology, a digital media and education company promoting radical self-love and body empowerment as the foundational tool for social justice and global transformation. I am deeply influenced by her work and support Sonya’s outreach on a monthly basis through Patreon. You can also find Sonya on Instagram.

Transparency in Spending & Support:

I am an independent artist and entrepreneur. Sharing where I spend my earned income is one way to remain in right-relationship with my clients and partners. As the sole bread-winner for my family, my income goes largely towards medical care for my family, local food sources, some student debt, savings, and monthly bills including mortgage, internet, water, electricity, gas, garbage, and cell phones.

The remainder of my income goes towards donations and overhead related to my business such as supplies, shipping, continuing education, and books. I’m proud to financially support the folks listed below. These are BIPOC and queer individuals and businesses, as well as artists who experience disability, local farms and justice-aligned service organizations. I encourage you to do the same.

BIPOC & QUEER OWNED BUSINESSES & INDEPENDENT ARTISTS

• Adrienne Oliver — Adrienne is a poet, speaker, curator, facilitator, and mother.

• B. Merikle — an art experimentalist and paradigm shifter creating work focused on unhooking from whiteness and de-centering whiteness - especially from the creative and sensual lives of black womxn and femmes.

• Edna’s Booktique — Enda’s Booktique is an independent bookstore located in Duncanville (Dallas), Texas, founded by Enda Jean Pemberton Jones, an African American educator and chaplain. This is where I get my books.

• Gwenn Seemel — a queer artist and writer, feminist and uncopyrighting advocate.

• Garlia Cornelia — a creative polymath, theatre artist, writer, producer, photographer, and podcaster. I first encountered Garlia’s work at a conference in New York.

• Kelcey Anya Performing Arts Academy (KAPAA) — a multi-disciplinary performing artist hailing from the bayous of South Louisiana. Kelcey founded KAPAA in New York City and features a summer summit focused on theatrical technique, poetry, playwriting and musical production for youth ages 10-17. I donate to Kelcey’s programming and scholarship funds.

• Mindy Tsonas Choi — Mindy is an artist, activist, bridge builder, and the founder of the Be Seen Project - a grassroots mutual aid initiative resourcing and amplifying BIPOC artists and makers who are using their work to center marginalized voices and create social justice and cultural change.

• Nikki Blak — Nikki is a writer, sociologist, womanist, and intersectional feminist whose art interrogates social constructs and affirms Blackness. Her thought leadership and radical education work centers marginalized and oppressed populations in the United States.

• Yusef Seevers for Arbonne — Yusef is a theatre maker, educator, dancer, and musician. He is also a consultant for Arbonne. I purchase nutritional supplements and wellness items through his business.

LOCAL ORGANIC FARMS

• Hedge Rose Farm — a small, diversified, queer-owned, primarily horse-powered farm in Eastern Oregon, focused on producing healthy, sustainable vegetables, fruits, and meats.

• Eagle Creek Orchard — an organic orchard in Eastern Oregon rooted in sustainable practices and food sovereignty. They believe that people have a right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

ORGANIZATIONS

• Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland — The mission of the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland (NPWH) is to enrich relationships among Nez Perce descendants and the contemporary inhabitants of Wallowa, to create a physical place to preserve and celebrate Native culture, and to tell the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) story in Wallowa. I donate monthly to NPWH.

• Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment — Grassroots Nimiipuu-led coalition organizing around time-honored sustainable environmental practices and protecting tribal lands and tribal treaty rights within their original ceded area and beyond. I donate monthly to NPE.

• Shakespeare In Detroit — Shakespeare in Detroit is a BIPOC-led nonprofit organization that enhances and supports the cultural, educational and financial growth of Detroit with professional theatre created through a conscious lens of equity, diversity and inclusion.

• Color of Change — Color of Change is designing powerful campaigns to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward. I donate annually.

• NAACP Legal Defense Fund — The NAACP working to reform policing in America. I donate annually.

• Planned Parenthood — Planned Parenthood delivers vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of people worldwide. Planned Parenthood saved my life as a young woman without resources. Now, I give every year.