3 Questions for ... Sarah Mizer

Glass artist, Sarah Mizer, explores polarization, overindulgence, and nostalgia in her exhibition "Of Most Excellent Fancy," on view through April 1, 2017 at a project space in Laurel Park, North Carolina, that is the contemporary art component of a novel retail wine market called the Crate Project. Drawing inspiration from Vanitas Dutch still life imagery, and dialog from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mizer created three groups of art forms that reside on individual walls. Each set of works evoke a sense of conflicting ideas, such as life and death, like Vanitas imagery, while incorporating her own experiences from her time as an artist residence at the Penland School of Crafts. In these three questions, Mizer expands on how her botanical studies mesh with 17th-century sources of inspiration.

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Sarah Mizer: When asked what am I up to I get excited to sum it up so simply: travel. Though based in Richmond, Virginia, travel is an important factor in generating imagery. “Of Most Excellent Fancy”, the show mounted at Crate Project in Laurel Park, North Carolina came to fruition while in residence at Penland just at the start of the new year. At Crate, you will see work mostly comprised of Penland plants rejoined as brittle and precarious still lifes. I was at Penland for their Winter Residency so the imagery is droopy, cold, and a little anemic. Meanwhile today on the schedule (worlds and seasons apart from Penland), I'm trying to find a birthday present for my mother somewhere in the souk while visiting Doha, Qatar. I'm here for a week and have some time today before the opening of “form(force)”, a juried exhibition of VCU faculty work fitting into the theme of  "Analog Living in a Digital World." My contribution to the show is a still life construction titled "Sweet and Bitter at the Same Time". This work is a still life piece which incorporates a digitally printed lemon, glass, light, and faux greenery that has been resurfaced with a white coat. To be in such an arid desert landscape with a piece that is comprised of counterfeited imagery as a stand in for lush nature, it's all so surreal.

Once back in Richmond, I'll have a couple weeks to gather my thoughts before giving an artist talk at Crate Project.  As mentioned above, this show at Crate is titled “Of most excellent fancy” which is pulled from Hamlet. I hope to discuss the ties to Hamlet and the imagery found within the play and the parallels found in my work. With Vanitas still lifes there are signifiers that remind us of the fleeting nature of life. The skull, a clock, a butterfly or my personal favorite: the lemon. As Hamlet holds Yorick’s skull in his hands, he is reminded of his greatest qualities and exaggerates his relationship to his fallen friend. Hamlet consciously enhanced the reflection of Yorick’s life and I amplify things I may not really remember and confound them with things I do. In this body of work I celebrate, maybe a little too earnestly, my fleeting friendships with these plant friends and by proxy: their home.

After “Of most Excellent Fancy” and “form(force)” both close, everything travels to open “Radio Galaxy” at the Bronx Art Space in late April. This is a group exhibition that will reintroduce these Vanitas series in a wildly different context. Hopefully between now and then I will have a couple other pieces finished as well. Also between now and then I travel to Kansas City to present at a conference.

Once summer finally arrives and school is enjoying some down time, I travel again for a conference, this time to Paris. After all of this, I travel to my second residency of the year in which, once again,  I get to hang out in a cabin in the mountains and focus on work. This time (in direct opposition to Penland’s wintry world) nature will be at it’s most verdant so I look forward to see how shifts will occur.

GLASS: What artwork have you experienced recently that has moved you, and got you thinking about your own work? 
Sarah: I mentioned earlier the fact that “Of most excellent fancy” mostly came about during a residency at Penland. Being at a residency with such incredible concentrations of wisdom coming from collective group is the most inspired experience I can think of. Residencies generally sustain me and inspire new work for years after they have come to an end.

GLASS: Where can your work be seen? 
Sarah: As mentioned above the work travels frequently, for this reason I try to keep my website up to date. Aside from various private collections, local to Richmond, my work is available through Page Bond Gallery.

"Of Most Excellent Fancy" will continue through until April 1st, when the artist will give a talk on the exhibition.

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