Artist Statement:
My work utilizes the natural rhythmic variation that occurs in daily repetition. Textile materials coupled with traditional hand embroidery techniques are at the heart of my work. Delving deeper into learning textile techniques and subsequently learning glassblowing, I’ve come to embrace my part in the larger story of craft. Through the techniques and materials I consciously choose, my work continues to not only tell the story of women’s work, but also considers labor practices and the processes of creation.
The underlying grid found in each piece provides a foundation where basic forms are mirrored, disrupted, subject to rotational symmetries, inversions and chance improvisations. My preference for simple, geometric shapes in my work creates an environment that is readily understood and interest is created through emphasizing form, material and visual mass. This modest vocabulary of classical shapes and personal materials becomes a meditation not only on form and material, but space, surface, and process. The variables of time and process are important aspects to my work. Patience and attention to detail add emotional warmth to the geometry and allows each piece to individually sit serenely complete by itself or within the context of other works.
As in a meditation practice, with repetition it is possible to observe objectively the rhythms of individual experience both personally and within the constraints of our communities. The intimacy of a single piece evokes a sense of internal contemplation while simultaneously being an integral part of a more complex and responsive experience – just as with an individual’s interaction and connections within the fabric of the community and society.
Bio:
Sarah J. Hull, is a Washington, D.C. based artist whose background in architecture, science, and visual arts come together to inform her work. Using natural fibers and fundamental hand embroidery stitches, each piece takes on an organic quality that creates a dialogue between the materials, “the hand,” and the underlying grid. She is a recipient of multiple District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grants. She is active in her local art community through the District of Columbia Art Center (DCAC) and other organizations, nationally through the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) and internationally through the UK based Society for Embroidered Work (S.E.W.). She has completed her Certificate in technical embroidery from the Royal School of Needlework’s (RSN) with merit. She is currently pursuing her Diploma in technical embroidery with the RSN. She was a member of the 2019 - 2020 DCAC Sparkplug cohort and studied at Pilchuck Glass School during the Summer of 2024. She regularly demonstrates lace making at the George Washington University Textile Museum and George Washington’s Mt. Vernon. Her work can be found in private collections in locations such as the Washington, DC area; New York, NY; Cambridge, MA; Louisville, KY; Sioux Falls, SD; San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Zürich, Switzerland.