Inklings SARA MERRITT

LOCATED IN THE SMALL WALL GALLERY (3RD FLOOR)

I think of these works as inklings, for their humble beginnings as tiny ink doodles, and for those small, nagging ideas, fears, and behaviors that have the power to become reality – whether beautiful or monstrous in their realization. The earliest works date back to 1997, when my mother was diagnosed with Huntington’s
Disease. They represent the management of multiple internal struggles – first with my own body image and the desire to find perfection within asymmetrical, writhing color; then the quest to contain my body and mind as my mother slowly began losing control over hers.

My practice is sometimes an inquiry into the interaction and display of bodies – as physical forms, printable images, philosophical constructs; as patterns, collections; recognizable or hidden and refigured. Through transition from one form or material to another, I can define new bodies to explore concepts of inscription, concealment, authenticity, illusion, and decay in a carefully sutured experience where nothing is as it seems. Other times, I paint simply to release – a wordless outpouring of thought and emotion.

Ultimately, everything I make echoes that first movement of ink on paper. My time spent with that writhing color is sacred, laborious, my personal visual expression at its core, in its purest, most honest form. It is a dance in two dimensions – movement controlled, contained, and preserved.

I hope you enjoy.

I am a native Ames artist, arts and dance instructor, and currently work full-time developing educational programming for Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University. From a weird and winding career path and with over 20 years’ experience teaching everything from silk-screening, painting, and problem-solving, to martial arts, belly dance, and zendoodle, I am consistently drawn to the connections between things and people, the intricacies of visual patterning, and the spectrum of perception – especially as an exploration through distortion.

I started assisting my dad in teaching photography classes for Ames’ Super Summer TAG program when I was 15, and have been leading art classes of all kinds ever since – mostly in informal settings through community education. I discovered belly dance at 17 at the suggestion of my mom – who had been a dancer in the 60’s – and now dance professionally, performing with the Mirage Middle Eastern Dance Troupe and teaching dance in Ames and surrounding areas. As an adolescent like any other I struggled with self-esteem, body image, and the looming future of my tight-knit family as my mom was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease – a debilitating and rare degenerative genetic disease causing uncontrollable movements, memory loss, and dementia. To combat fear and loss of control I began transforming absent-minded doodles and sketches into meditative works on paper.

Throughout the last few decades while teaching I have worked as a hotel housekeeper, a bartender and waitress, a bookstore clerk, a hippie shop associate, a Renaissance festival commissioned artist, a commercial screen-printer, a Destination Imagination coach, and an educational associate for middle school Special Education. I have met and worked with students of all ages, abilities, and temperaments, and I am still unfailingly fascinated by all the nuances in individual perception that manifest through personal interaction. In short, I love teaching art – perhaps the oldest method of human expression built from the
desire to create and communicate.

As an introvert who habitually does extroverted things, I depend on solitude and time to myself in order to thrive. Movement through art and dance often helps me process my own thoughts and make personal decisions. After yet another somewhat twisted path through higher education, I ended up receiving a degree of my own design – a Bachelor of Arts in Art, Sexuality, & Aesthetic Perception from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2003. With the support of my amazing husband Matthew I obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011, and quickly returned home to help care for my mother, who passed in 2013.

I believe absolutely in the power of visual expression and informal education; for me, it all begins with an inkling – a tickle of thought, a spark of energy, a compulsion to make a mark, express movement, or share something unspoken with others. I will continue to create, to dance, and to teach as long as I am able. And maybe after.

https://www.saramerritt.com/