Sara Steffey McQueen Artist Statement
Nature and acts of Creativity are my passion. I am a grandmother who gardens and loves to learn about the flowers and trees and the landscapes of this area. As an elder now, I keep play alive and nourished by my grandchildren. Children keep us open and fed by wonder. I have lived in Indiana most of my life and Bloomington is my home for 50 years now. I have built a life in community and love the gentle beauty of the midwest USA.
I have been exhibiting my art locally and regionally since the early 1980’s. Teaching art for 30 years in the Monroe County Public Schools was a rich and rewarding career, and brought me many gifts and memories. I was awarded 2 Lilly Teacher Creativity Grants for travel and received the Indiana art Teacher of the Year award by Arts Education of Indiana. I volunteered for 7 years with an international organization TREE SISTERS to reforest tropical areas and help the environment. Now, I am on the Board of Directors of Artists for Climate Awareness. I still teach as a Creativity Coach and offer workshops throughout the area. I hold certifications in Art of Allowing© and Wild Soul Woman© Nature Attunements using creative explorations through the landscape.
My art is an intimate and personal glimpses into my world. My home in rural Monroe County and my studio are retreat spaces, and often the source of my subject matter. Travel also inspires new landscapes and subjects. Many of my watercolors are inspired by the cycles of the seasons and the places I travel. I paint on location (plein air) and in the studio.
I explore a variety of styles, spanning an impressionistic style of realism to full abstraction. I love making and using a variety of papers and incorporate handmade papers and printmaking techniques into collages. I paint most often in acrylic, and watercolor.
Besides nature, my sources of inspiration are rooted in metaphoric images and stories from cultures around the world such as in Sufism, I Ching, and Buddhism. I study and incorporate tribal and traditional influences in some of my works – not as appropriated – but as experiential integration and personal expression. I take a loose and playful approach to rendering and find my impressions more important than photographic accuracy.
My practice over the last 10 years has been with intuitive approaches to technique, inspired by the richness of the landscape and meditation and inner journeys. I am a certified teacher of Wild Soul Woman© and Art of Allowing © Intuitive painting. For me this is a new way to bring forth expression ~ from the inside out instead of being inspired by the outer world of Nature. I am allowing the painting to develop from the inside ~out.
Most recently I am creating Nature- based art materials from plants and pigments from rocks. Using these in combination with reeds and other found objects in nature I build images to celebrate an environmentally sustainable and organic approach to art.
I was trained at Indiana University in the printmaking and drawing departments, and taught art for 30 years in Monroe County schools. My work has been published in Artistic Touch 6. Edited by Don Unwin, and owned by 2 Universities, and many private collectors. I exhibit regionally at the Arts alliance Center and By Hand Gallery, and locally and host workshops and classes. I have Signature Status in the Bloomington Watercolor Society and the Watercolor Society of Indiana. I offer private classes and retreat workshops as a Creativity coach with Mandala making, Nature immersion, and herbal preparations.