About Sara:

The short version:

Sara Lynch is an artist and educator born and raised in Potsdam, NY a small college town on the Northernmost edge of New York State. After earning a BFA from Alfred University they worked in childcare for six years while attending residencies and workshops in painting and ceramics along the East Coast and Badlands of Canada. As of late they have been working towards an Associate Degree in Electrical Engineering Technology at SUNY Canton and attending Yestermorrow Design/Build School for workshops in things like permaculture design and masonry oven building. Currently, they are working to create multidisciplinary accessible programming that facilitates people developing a deeper relationship with their environment through a fusion of art and science.

The longer version:

Sara’s father is a math professor who stares at the ceiling for hours to solve his equations. Her mother is a writer, gardener, and caretaker to assorted rescue animals. Sara is the middle child and is unsure of what her siblings actually do.

Sara had amazing art and music teachers in high school so naturally, she applied to a few art schools for university. In 2002 she ended up at Alfred University with the hope of studying painting, photography, and psychology.

Sara hated ceramics in high school but since she was at a top-notch ceramics school she figured she should give it another try and signed up for a wheel class. Her teacher was a renowned sculptor who taught her to use the wheel as a tool for creating shapes and not to take clay too seriously. Sara finished the course by making a large Ganesha sculpture from wheel-thrown parts that made the sculpture students next door envious. After that, she was hooked. Aside from some dabbling in a few other classes like existentialism and sound art, she stuck to painting and ceramics for her Bachelors of Fine Art. This split her time between the ceramics department on the first floor where students would hide in room-sized kilns to avoid the security guards and the painting studio where her space would get so messy that the studio tech would put a "THIS SPACE IS A HEALTH AND SAFETY VIOLATION" in it at least once a semester. (Sorry about that!)

Upon graduating she returned home, rented a studio, and started work at a childcare center. Eventually, after running the after-school program and working at the childcare center for six years she was able to quit and begin creating things full-time in 2013.

As a ceramic artist, Sara works with electrical kilns and often ends up having to fix them herself. She enjoys troubleshooting electrical issues but has found it hard to find good electricians to work with. So in 2019 she went back to school at SUNY Canton for electrical engineering tech.

Currently, Sara earns a living through a combination of writing grants to fund teaching and public art programs as well as creating private commissions and small collections of jewelry and pottery which she sells in her group on Facebook.

She now lives and works with a third house rabbit and a small cat she found on a cranberry farm.

Sara has attended Medalta International Artists Residency in Alberta, CA, Penland School of Crafts, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, and the Women's Studio Workshop for residencies and workshops in ceramics. She also attended the Vermont Studio Center for a four-week residency in painting. Vermont is where she was first encouraged to move beyond using traditional stretcher bars for her paintings. Her work has been shown in various local galleries as well as venues in Canada, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York City.