Sara Curtiss Westlund

About the Process

My work is driven by a want to enrich the lives of others by indulging in my own inspiration. The creation of functional items that tell a story, such as my Monsoon Graffiti Series, is a leap of faith that others have that child-like joyous regard for raw happy drawings of nature that do not require a soft touch. I mean to celebrate the creative, free and wild spirit in myself that I believe is in most of us as we are just looking and more feeling a "part of" than when we are older. My carved fuctional series takes inspiration from maximalist, the deco movement and the the natural world. First and foremost I seek to weave negative space into positive space in a repetion to emphasize the interconnectedness of the natural world. I have a set patterns for each plant that I represent in this way with a preterdermind shape specific to them overlapping and playing in the design. The geometric forms that I overlay are symbolic of all the numerous naturally occurring influences and influencing factors that play out in the life of each plant in its ecosystem. The carved wild clay vessels are my way of creating a sculptural representation of botanical life that was sustained by the earth that is sculpted. The vessels are meant to be a representation of the desert from which the clay is harvested.