{tac}

Sara Swanberg

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011
• 'Where Birds Dream' Winter Show and Silent Auction, 2010

Artist's Statement, 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011:

Thoughts of Petra

"Always more comfortable working in 3D, I’ve never been particularly happy facing an empty canvas or blank paper.  So this sculptural abstract painting is about as close as I will get to 2D work.  The bulk of my earlier work that goes back many years has been of hand-built clay and more recently carved or manipulated wood.  

Years ago I thoroughly enjoyed a slide show my brother shared of his trip to Petra in Jordan.  It looks like I’ll finally get there in 2012 so I have been reading a great deal about the site, and the neighboring Wadi Rum area and the Bedouin people who still live there today.  Imagine what it must have been like to be an early explorer walking excitedly (running?) between the rocks toward the ruins at Petra, and experiencing that first unbelievable glimpse of the sunlit Treasury!

Something about the vastness of the desert and its colors and rock formations have grabbed at my soul and mind for some years now.  I constantly read about early desert explorations and keep returning to the hot and dry areas of Africa, the Middle East, the southwest area of the US, and soon the Australian Outback…a far cry from my chosen home and personal hideaway in the cool, wet and mossy Coast Range.  Water and plant life are so scarce in the desert, while in Summit I am embraced by the stuff.  The attachment to and love of these two places seem completely incongruous."

Sara Swanberg, 2011