Let the materials speak for themselves: Sarah Crowner!

When I first pulled Sarah Crowner’s art works, I was surprised by the abstract elements. Each of her works of art look very simple, and they give the feeling that there’s nothing in there that doesn’t need to be there. Each piece gives the feeling that they are constructed or collaged with intention and I am wondering if that’s something that she would n’t put into words. Also, I am wondering if Crowner has a belief system or a particular idea or concept that she is trying to develop. From the conversation with her, I found out she is very different from other artists. She mentions, “ I’m not trying to say anything. I am trying to let the materials speak for themselves and sort of let the color do what it does best.”

Crowner’s idea on letting materials speak for themselves stands out to me, because usually artists think about an idea or a belief in what they want to represent, then they dive into colors and think about what color best represents their beliefs. Personally, I am the same. I came up with ideas and then went into colors. Crowner did this in the opposite way. She dives deeply into colors and thinks about the color composition, and lets colors be the main subject in each of her art works. She likes to put her work together on the wall, so that she’s able to see the color in each piece and able to see how her artworks flow from one to another. 

Crowner loves colors, which caused her to move away from the traditional artworks, and instead of waiting for paint to dry, she pays more attention to tailoring or sewing the color pieces together. She feels like this is the best way to see the color composition, and sewing them together is the fastest way to see colors and how they are operating together. 

By looking at her works, I feel like the colors are very coherent together, and from the colors, as a viewer, I am able to build my own explanation for each piece. Personally, I feel the collage of color pieces are so abstract that I can come up with millions of ideas or concepts behind each of them. For each piece, Crowner sews them very well to create that sharp edge between colors which looks incredible to me. I am surprised by it. She says, “Let materials do what they do best on the canvas is a kind of painful process, I thought what would be the best way is to join two bodies of colors together in a way that makes a hard edge, sewing was the most logical practical answer.” Crowner has identified the best way to let materials speak for themselves through sewing, and she continues to let colors demonstrate themselves to the public and the art world. Like what Amna Asghar bought up, “Do what is important and relevant to you and then later on, it’ll seep into the world the way it needs to seep into the world.” Crowner definitely let her color sewing artworks enter the art world. She also successfully let materials speak for themselves and speak for her own uniqueness in the art field.