Sarah Studio
by Bob Waite
Art, particularly drawing and painting, is language. We use it to communicate images and it affects us just as much or maybe even more than the spoken and written word. Images, of course, abound in our era of mobile phones and social media. But it is doubtful that this weakens their effect. The old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is still true.
This is what motivates Bucks County artist Sarah Kaizar, who has given herself the daunting project of drawing all the endangered species on the American list. She calls it a “slow burn project.” “I want to illustrate every species that’s currently endangered or on the verge of extinction. This includes plants, bugs, clams. There are about 1200 species that are listed as endangered and there is a huge number of species that are threatened. I am drawing the ones that are on the verge of extinction.”
Qualifying Sarah for this task is an interest in art that goes back to the second grade. “I have been creating art since I was a kid.” Realizing that she had an inborn talent and was able to draw led her to take art classes beginning when she was in second grade. Sarah lived in Newtown and would go to the Painter’s Nest in Southampton for her classes. She attended the Tyler School of Art, which is a part of Temple University where she received a BA in fine arts.
Sarah says of her art, “I am primarily an oil painter, although I did some acrylic work. I also worked at one of those paint-your-own pottery stores and got into ceramic painting.” For a while Sarah worked for the Alleghany Art Company in Newtown.
Although Sarah’s drawings are almost all representational, she has done her share of experimental and conceptual art where the media is dictated by the project itself. Sarah says, “I just recently did a large installation, it’s part of the Delaware Contemporary Museum of Art’s exhibition last summer and the piece I did used glass, silk, video and it’s kind of whatever I want to mix it up.”
Sarah enjoys viewing contemporary art. “I love painters that work differently than I do. For example, I like James Terrell, a contemporary light installation artist. His work is fascinating, and he has installations all over the world. He has one in Chestnut Hill and a huge project under way in Arizona.”
Sarah uses pen and ink to draw endangered species. And there is something about the stark black and white representations that make the plants and animals look like documentation—documentation, for the most part, of our collective negligence and lack of stewardship.
Sarah has always been interested in the environment and says, “I feel strongly about this issue.” She volunteered for Conserve Wildlife of New Jersey and the Philadelphia chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Explaining their programs, Sarah says, “Both organizations had an adopt-a-species program which highlighted a dozen species in the area. The purpose was to raise awareness, and help the fundraising effort, but I think it sometimes over simplified the issue, and you lose the scope of it. But if you do try to think about all the species and how they are connected and how they affect the eco system that we live in … and thinking about them disappearing and what that would mean … it almost takes this to a level of abstraction.”
Sarah, knowing that numbers, words and abstractions do not always show the scope of a catastrophe, believes that the 1200 drawings that she intends to complete may make a more intimate, lasting impression. “My work is literal. These are detailed accessible portraits of species that are on the verge of extinction entirely. My dream is to have all these on display together, so you are swallowed up by all these things that are gone. It’s to feel the weight of the issue in a different way that is more accessible, and you can see it.”
Sarah had to research the species and be able to see subtle differences in animals and plants that most of us wouldn’t notice. “I did research online and I work with a handful of biologists, both professional and amateur that are in the field doing preservation work and cataloging some of these species. Some of them are hard for me to understand the differences. I illustrate every clam and mussel, and they start to look all the same to me. So, I would do a drawing and then send it over to the team to make sure its accurate. I am trying to make them as accurate as possible.”
Sarah also has teamed up with college and university biology departments and has made use of photos in their catalogs. Sarah, speaking of the catalogs, says, “Usually universities have catalogs of species, but they are not engaging. The photos are usually dry cut in the catalogs, so I am trying to take it out of context and breath some life into them.
The universities are for the most part cooperative. Sarah has been working with the Harvard Natural History Museum. There are also a few museums in Texas that are helping her with toads. She says, “I kind of cold called the departments and explained the project that I am working on and asked them if they would allow me to use their source material.”
Because the drawings are so naturalistic, drawing from source material can be sticky because of copyright issues with photography. “I don’t want to make my drawings exact copies of the photos because I want to bring something different to the table.”
Sarah admits that most of the people she contacts are generous with their source material, but qualifying, she says, “Bird people are a little tricky, but I assume it’s because it takes so much work to find these birds and photograph them.”
Sarah, who did a lot of her drawings while commuting on a train, is learning more about this issue as she does her work. “Since I am focusing on endangered American species, I am trying to get a pretty good range from across the country and that’s been uncovering patterns too. I am kind of learning more about the issue as I go.”
Sarah, who hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail from from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine, is working on a book that is due to come out in August 2019. On www.sarahkaizar.com she describes the book, Hiker Trash, as “a collage of long distance backpacking culture, offering a glimpse of an off-beat, diverse community through a collection of my original illustrations and photos as well as excerpts from hiker shelter logs collected from the archives of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.”
Meanwhile Sarah funds her endangered species drawings by selling her drawings on prints, cards and field journals at www.rallycaller.com. Sarah never went after grants, because she doesn’t know how the process works. Perhaps one of you who are reading this may be able to help her with this process. If you can help her continue this very important effort to document all the American endangered species, please email Sarah at sarah@rallycaller.com.
Bob Waite is the editor of Bucks County Magazine.