Hello, I’m Sarah Metzler, an artist living and working in South Lake Tahoe.

I was raised in the suburbs of Detroit, earning my B.S. in Environmental Science from University of Michigan. My unique path has led to a breadth of experience, with work including grassroots political organizing, “mobile frozen confectionery vending,” preparing tax returns and copy-editing for social media marketing, in addition to artistic pursuits. Ceramic and paint media have become central in my work, and I also run a face & body painting business. (Full bio here)

Painting and sculpting are both a way to transform surfaces and materials, taking them from raw and disparate ingredients (or from where nature, entropy or functionality has left things) and building visual interest, recognizable shapes and artistic intention. Beyond just being decorative, the result of adding color, texture and symbols to the world with paint – to anything from a blank canvas to a wall or a human face – is often dramatic, obliging the viewer to notice things differently.

My history with environmental science and clean-water activism has taught me that we need these moments. Suddenly seeing the beauty that objects-formerly-designated-as-trash can have when repurposed, understanding the interconnected nature of plant and animal life with our own, or simply slowing down and recognizing the truly fascinating details found under every rock, inside every eye and all over our world – these are moments that can nudge us out of the complacency and numbness that isolate and restrain us.

One of the most powerful parts of the process of making my ceramic sculptures is that I find myself capable to conjure and create almost any object; bringing forth a skeleton key, for example, to complement a stack of pirate treasure atop a thickly-bound book – all of which I manifested from wet mud. I’m occasionally struck by the smell of earth when I open a bag of clay. It inspires me that I’m working with such an elemental component of nature, something you can dig out of the ground by a riverbank, and using it to realize my earthly-but-fantastic visions. The process transforms it into stone, the alchemy of fire signaling that the opportunity to change the past is gone.

The blank page of the bare bisque – representing so much work and yet birthed from the kiln as an entirely new object and project, no going back – gives me another opportunity to endow context, imagery and emotional weight, transforming things yet again by adding color. Actual blank pages do this all the time; it’s part of their job — and I do enjoy my 2-d media. But funny-shaped bricks, or literal bodies, somehow present me with a more enriching possibility under my brush.

love & art,

S

Favorites among my ceramic works. Some pics link to more detail.