2000 I have my first solo show, ____ day of my life, at the now-defunct ASA Gallery at UNM.
2001 My senior thesis show, Actual Size, sells out. I graduate from UNM with a BFA.
2002 Making art on my own in Indiana, I realize that I need more instruction to become a better painter. This becomes my goal in applying to graduate school.
2003 I begin graduate study at RIT.
2004 I learn a heck of a lot about the illustration business, and my personal style really begins to solidify. I start making paintings like this.
2005 I complete my graduate thesis show. One of these paintings is accepted to the Society of Illustrators Scholarship Competition.
2006 I move to Oklahoma, and am warmly welcomed into the artistic community here.
2007 I get a beautiful studio above Mainsite Gallery, and a slot in the Art 365 program.
2008 The Art 365 show debuts, including my series Normal, OK.
2009 I join the fabulous, inspiring, nerdcore community at the Oklahoma City Coworking Collaborative, or okcCoCo.

And from this past year, 2009:

January: I make two drawings for the Seeing Other People show curated by Jennifer Barron.
February: I take my family to Society of Illustrators in NYC to see my piece in the annual Book Illustration exhibition.
March: I quit my last day job to commit to art full-time. Haaaa-le-lu-jah
April: I attend OVAC’s Artists’ Retreat at Quartz Mountain, where I learn all about residencies.
May: I began the Occupied project, on my own, because a) I wanted to and b) I can.
June: My drawing of romy is accepted to the 24 Works On Paper travelling exhibition.
July: Back to Normal: Normal, OK Revisited opens at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum.
August: I join the okcCoCo and move my studio there.
November: I’m accepted into OVAC’s first Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship.
December: Looking forward to 2010. There have been so many positive changes for me in recent years, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

OKCCoCo is a new collaborative coworking space in downtown Oklahoma City. It’s a place for freelancers and entrepreneurs who don’t have offices of their own to work and network. At the CoCo, people work to further their careers or reinvent themselves in new businesses. The concept is a little difficult to get across, so watch the video for more insight.

I recently moved into one of the CoCo’s reserved offices, and have set up my studio there. It has changed my life for the better. I’m excited about being among a community of creative people, not just from the art world, but other fields as well.

It’s not just for geeks! The CoCo wants to expand their artistic community, and are doing so through events like the monthly DIY craft meeting, and the upcoming Craft Camp Weekend.

The CoCo offers various membership plans, detailed here. There’s something here for everyone.

What did it take to get to your position?

The short answer is: hard work, believing in myself, and a healthy dose of good luck. The long answer follows.

I was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1980. When I was still a baby, my family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we lived for the next twenty years. My parents both have backgrounds in the arts. My father, John Atlee, was a professional potter when I was born. Since then he has practiced in a number of other media. My mother, Emmy Ezzell, studied art in college and became a book designer a couple of years before I came along. She is now Production Director at the University of Oklahoma Press in Norman.

Sarah’s Mom Draws Sarah Drawing, ink on paper, circa 1984 by Emmy Ezzell. Click image to view full-size.

I am not alone in believing that all children are artists, and the lucky ones who are encouraged continue to be artists when they grow up. My parents have always understood the value of art in a person’s life, so while growing up I knew that making art was not silly or wasteful.

By the time I graduated from high school I knew that I wanted to study art in college. I didn’t yet know if I wanted to pursue fine art as a profession, because I knew that career path was a difficult one with no guarantee of success.

I attended the University of New Mexico on scholarship. I majored in Fine Art Studio with a focus in painting, and graduated in 2001. [See that gif on the Art Studio program page? The barest hint of my worktable is visible in it, behind James Pitt's paintings. Yeah, looks like they haven't updated it lately.] My education at UNM focused mostly on the conceptual side of art rather than the technical. I feel I got a very good education in how to think and talk like an artist. But while I was there, my desire to produce technically excellent drawings and paintings was met with confusion and occasionally discouragement. The practice of making pictures of things was definitely not the norm at UNM.

I understood that I didn’t really fit in at this program, but I set my sights on what I really wanted to make. You may be familiar with Juxtapoz magazine, which entirely changed the way I looked at art. (At that time, most of the students and faculty at UNM hadn’t yet heard of Juxtapoz.) I spent a lot of Friday nights in the studio, alone, trying to make paintings that were as good as just one frame of Batman: Arkham Asylum (a graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean in the Batman lexicon). I’m still not that good, but I recognized that to get there, I had to reach very high. It wasn’t enough that I do work as good or better than my fellow students. I had to make work as good as successful professionals in the field. (Although I didn’t yet know just what field that was.)

Jaded Girl, acrylic and ink on canvas, 5 x 7 inches, 2001. Click image to see more of these.

I spent the next two years out of school, living in Bloomington, Indiana. (My Mom had moved there for a new job following my parents’ divorce.) I kept painting, and I booked a few gallery shows around town. I did some part-time work, but mainly my Mom supported me during that time. My paintings were not what I wanted them to be. I realized that I didn’t have the skills, guidance, or enough practice to be the painter I wished I was. I decided to go back to school.

In 2003, I enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, New York) as a graduate student. RIT is a technical university, but they have very good programs in the arts. I majored in painting, minored in illustration, and graduated in 2006 with a Master of Fine Arts degree. My graduate thesis was about the use of cartoons in contemporary painting.

[I'd like to interject here and say that going to graduate school was frighteningly expensive. Most art students enter grad school intending to become professors. This never interested me; I was in it to become a better painter. I did that. It was worth it. But I also racked up student loans that are too big to talk about here. So if you are an art student considering grad school, please don't feel like you need to rush into that. It is not your only option.]

While at grad school, I learned from one of my professors that being a professional illustrator was a viable career choice. Thousands of illustrators are employed every day by magazines, book publishers, companies who need images to sell their products, etc. Turns out, illustration is everywhere once you start looking for it. Every time you see a picture, remember that *someone was paid to make that picture.* And it’s not all made on computers, either.



Birthe Flexner’s Coffee Cups, ink sketch, 2008. Click image to view source.

Upon getting my master’s degree I hoped to become a professional illustrator. In 2005, my Mom had returned to Norman, Oklahoma, for a new job. I followed her there, eager to reconnect with my Okie roots. What I found when I got here surprised me. Oklahoma has a growing, thriving contemporary art community, made up of people of all ages and backgrounds. As an artist, I was welcomed with open arms.

Of course, there were a couple of proactive steps I took to help myself along. I joined the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and sent them a portfolio to put up on their website. I cannot emphasize enough how important a resource this is for Oklahoma artists. (JOIN.) Julia Kirt, the Director of OVAC, looked at my portfolio and offered me a slot in an upcoming group show. Ashley Griffith, a photographer and gallery owner in OKC, went to that show, and offered me a show at her gallery. Meanwhile, I also submitted my portfolio to Mainsite Gallery in Norman. They offered to put my work in their annual Emergent show. That was in late 2006, and things have just snowballed from there. In art, as in any other industry, word of mouth is the best advertising.

I believe that talent exists, but by no means is it the deciding factor in a person’s success. I do believe that luck favors the prepared. I have been blessed with many opportunities. Certain professional skills have helped me take advantage of those opportunities: having a website where people can see my work, having a quality portfolio (on the web, on cd, and in book form), having business cards, returning people’s calls, sending thank-you notes, shaking hands, being willing to ask for advice and learn from other people. These kinds of things apply to every business, not just art, and they matter just as much as the paintings I produce.

My current job title is gallery artist, or working artist. I never thought it would happen, but I’ve become an artist who shows work in galleries (and even sells some). I don’t hesitate to say that living in Oklahoma has helped to bring this about.




Submerge, acrylic on canvas, 2009. Click image to view source.

What do you like about your job?

I love that I get to follow my calling. I make art, and nobody gets to tell me what that art should look like. I have complete creative control over my product. I have a fantastic network of support and mutual creativity in the Oklahoma art community. I feel very lucky.

What do you dislike about your job?

It can be very challenging to make time to make art. Remember those things I mentioned, like shaking hands and returning phone calls? Administrative tasks like that can take up a lot of my time. Not to mention things like grocery shopping and walking the dog. But I’ve learned to manage my time well, stay organized, and summon the energy to complete the necessary tasks that stand between me and my paintings.

What is a typical day in your profession like for you?

I have a part-time job as a lifeguard for the YMCA. [Note: I left this job in April 2009.] I work the early weekday shift, which means I get up at 4:00 am, leave the house at 5:00, and open the pool at 5:30. (Getting up early is something I seem to be good at.) My shifts are four to six hours long, so I leave work before noon and have the rest of the day at my disposal. I come home, and spend an hour or two changing clothes, eating, and reading my email. I resist the urge to spend the rest of the day reading blogs on the internet. I keep project notes and to-do lists on index cards, so I go over those and see what my tasks are for the day. (Check out David Allen’s book Getting Things Done for more advice on this subject.) I like to get quick things out of the way first, to feel like I’ve accomplished something. I try to save errands and run them all in one day.

Some days I don’t make art. But usually I have a project going that has a deadline, such as an upcoming gallery show. I like to work on art during the afternoon and evening, for at least two hours at a stretch. I have a portable DVD player on my desk, so I play movies or listen to music while I’m working. Wearing headphones allows me to shut out the outside world and focus on my work. Listening to some kind of media helps me park my verbal brain elsewhere, and lets my subconscious mind come out and play. This way, I’m better able to make aesthetic decisions without over-analyzing and second-guessing myself.

Currently, my studio is a room at the back of our house. (I now live in OKC with my boyfriend.) It’s awesome having a dedicated space for my work. I also like working near a kitchen, a bathroom, the mailbox, etc. Working at home is a good situation for me. [Note: I have just moved into a studio/office at the OKCCoCo, which is also near a kitchen, a bathroom, and a mailbox. It's swell.]

I have never been a night person. I like to go to bed early.

(If you are interested in how other creative people organize their day, have a look at the Daily Routines blog.)

Whats your favorite color?

Gray. One of my college professors described the color gray as mysterious. It turns any other color into something that’s much more difficult to describe. Gray is ambiguity.

When I give this answer, there’s usually a voice that pipes up and declares that gray is not a color. From a certain technical standpoint, smartypants is right. But when I go to the art supply store, I can pick up a tube of paint that says “gray,” and bring it home and put it down on a canvas. So that guy can suck it.




Crazy Aunt Millie (Was Burned at the Stake), oil on canvas, 2005. Click image to view source.

Do you have a favorite artist?

I have many. Here are some of my favorite artists of the moment:
Joe Sorren (painter)
Maira Kalman (painter, illustrator)
Mike Disfarmer (photographer)
August Sander (photographer)
David Hughes (illustrator)
James Jean (painter, illustrator)
Ruth Ann Borum (painter, Norman, OK)

Where do you get your inspiration?

Inspiration comes from absolutely everywhere. Books, movies, music, magazines, internet. Right now I’m really excited by old signs for businesses around Oklahoma City. I especially love hand-painted signs. I’m often inspired by other artists: when I see a picture that I really like, I think to myself, “I want to do that, too!” So I may paint my own interpretation of that picture, in my own style.

As I mentioned, luck favors the prepared. I try and keep an open mind, and recognize that ideas can come from anywhere without warning.

The curious abbreviation NaBloPoMo refers to National Blog Posting Month, which began a couple of years ago as a call for bloggers to post something every day for a month. (It’s a spinoff of National Novel Writing Month.) Thanks to the efforts of people like Eden, NaBloPoMo is now celebrated every month of the year. There is a theme suggestion for each month, but blogging on the theme is always optional. It lives on as an exercise in developing the habit of regular blog posting.

I jumped on board NaBloPoMo for the month of July. It was a good time for me, as I had finished up work for my current solo show (Back to Normal at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum, through September 19). I always have more ideas than I have time to write about (or paint about), so I had a stack of blog topics saved up. I diligently released one post a day for three weeks. Then I stopped.

During those three weeks, I noticed my blogging behavior adapt like a small fish put into a bigger pond. The more blogging I did, the more topics I found worthy of blogging about. I could do it all day, every day. It was a rewarding experience, though limiting in other ways (my time, a valuable resource, was depleted).

Around the fourth week of July, daily blogging lost its importance for me. I had three shows open, my car had been totaled, etc etc; my blog slipped down my list of priorities. My readership had increased during daily posting (mostly via Facebook), but not dramatically. So I let myself off the hook.

I’ll continue blogging, of course, but I don’t plan to hold myself to a stringent timetable. Quality, not quantity. It’s time for me to focus on being a painter, especially now that I have a new studio. Stay tuned.

Thank you, folks out in internetland, for reading this.

A chronological list.

1987 | Under Plum Lake by Lionel Davidson

1987 | The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer

1988 | Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

1988 | The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

1989 | From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

1989 | The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin (I loved those typographic illustrations.)

1989 | The BFG by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake

1992 | Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

1993 | The Alanna Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Genetics Exhibit, San Jose Tech by Flickr user Thomas Hawk. Click image to view on Flickr.

1994 | Xanadu volumes I and III edited by Jane Yolen (Why are these book impossible to find? Volume II has apparently never even been published. It’s the best short fantasy I have ever read. Somebody help.)

1995 | Nebula and Hugo Awards winners

1996 | Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace

1997 | Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (This is the best cover design I’ve seen for this book.)

1998 | Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

1998 | Everything I could find by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Thank you, Zimmerman Library.

2000 | Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

2001 | Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

2004-06 | The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of The World) by Neal Stephenson

Right Now: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale

What books consume you?

This post is part of NaBloPoMo for July 2009.

Namaste, photo by Kim Pierro. Click image to see this photo’s Flickr page.

I recently contributed to the BookMooch Journal Thin Places. My entry was the word Namaste.

Namaste has a lot of different translations. My favorite is “The light within me salutes the light within you.” This particular translation was used by the Reverend Tom Honey in this talk for the 2005 TED Conference. His speech, titled “How could God have allowed the Tsunami?”, calls into question our Western idea of theodicy, the notion that God is in charge and everything happens according to a divine plan. He counters this view with the suggestion that every creature contains divine light as part and parcel of their existence. (Do yourself a favor, take twenty minutes, and listen to his talk. His warm, soothing voice alone is worth the time.)



Live Oak Friends Meeting House, designed by James Turrell.

Artist James Turrell has also drawn influence from this idea of internal light. Turrell’s upbringing included education in Quaker spirituality. The Quaker belief system cherishes inner light as the receptacle and source for divine understanding. (How interesting that the disparate Quaker and Hindu faiths should include this same idea at their core.) On his early experience with the Quaker society, Turrell says,

My grandmother used to tell me that as you sat in Quaker silence you were to go inside to greet the light. That expression stuck with me. …Telling a child to go inside “to greet the light” is about as much as was ever told to me. But there is an idea, first of all, of vision fully formed with the eyes closed. Of course the vision we have in a lucid dream often has greater lucidity and clarity than vision with the eyes open. The fact that we have this vision with the eyes closed is very interesting. And the idea that it’s possible to actually work in a way, on the outside, to remind one of how we see on the inside, is something that became more interesting to me as an artist.

You can go here and view clips about Turrell and his work from the PBS’ excellent Art:21 series.

Sketchbook: I Miss Oklahoma, ink on paper, February 2009. Click image to see full-size.

Ryan Peck interviewed me last week for the OVAC blog, and here it is.

I mentioned to him that if I could go back in time ten years or so, and talk to myself when I was mid-way through art school, I would say: ignore the fear. Or alternately, feel the fear and do it anyway. Do not let fear keep you from doing or making anything. I’m telling myself that on a daily basis now. Hope it sinks in.

‘Tis the season, I think, even if I’m a bit early, to concern myself with the self I really wish to be. (I tend to skip the holidays and go straight to January out of self-defense.)

I’m with Merlin. Browser tabs I seem unable to close this week are:

Andrea Zittel
An artist concerned with optimizing personal space. You can see a film about her from Season 1 of the PBS series Art21. I’m quite intrigued by the smockshop.

How to Lose 20 lbs of Fat in 30 Days by Tim Ferriss (author of The Four Hour Workweek)

Self-Discipline by Steve Pavlina

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. …Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what.

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp (free excerpt)

I will keep stressing the point about creativity being augmented by routine and habit. Get used to it. In these pages a philosophical tug of war will periodically rear its head. It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work.

If it isn’t obvious already, I come down on the side of hard work. That’s why this book is called The Creative Habit. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell.

On Being Good by Leslie Harpold
I feel like I wrote this:

I’m asleep by ten and up by six, I drink eight to ten glasses of water a day. I get 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise four times a week and I rigidly adhere to the food pyramid guidelines. I just had a serving of fruit.

Read more about the extraordinary Leslie Harpold here.

For dessert, also by Leslie: Possible Scenarios for Heaven

Get up around sunrise, because sunrise is always five minutes after you wake up in heaven, and seeing a different and more magnificent one each day, simultaneously thinking “Wow, earth was beautiful” and also “This is pretty great too.”

After watching the trailer, I had to go remind myself just what a synechdoche is. It’s a grammatical term for a metaphorical phrase in which a part stands for a whole, such as “wheels” for a car or “all hands” for the crew of a ship.

The real treat (as if reading about nuances of the English language wasn’t scintillating enough) came at the end of the Wikipedia article, under the See Also section. Here’s what I found:

* Conceptual metaphor
* Figure of speech
* Metonymy
* Pars pro toto
* Totum pro parte
* Hendiadys

If that was the guest list of a dinner party, I would totally bring the chips.

Related: Sarah’s words on Wordie.

David Foster Wallace Considers the Lobster. Acrylic, ink and collage on paper, 2006.

Los Angeles Times obituary for David Foster Wallace.

David Foster Wallace at Wikipedia.