Artist Bio

Artists Bio : Sarah Crosby Taylor

I have been creating art since I was old enough to hold a crayon. This compulsion got me in trouble as a child when I decorated the walls and the front door of my parents house. Not to be deterred, I have continued painting on walls, paper, canvas, and even rocks. I cheerfully and unrepentantly call my painting and jewelry- making “manias.” Add that to an endless hunt for ancestors, and a curiosity about all aspects of the natural world, life is way too short, and never dull.

I have come to realize that curiosity is the driving force behind my art. I have always loved painting and drawing faces, and trying to know the character and the spirit those faces portray. I have the same curiosity about landscapes…what lies just around the bend, or over the hill? As a child I wandered the hills near home in Mendocino County California searching for wildflowers, so many kinds! What would I find next? We moved to Decatur Island Washington when I was nine, and now there were agates and shells to hunt on the beaches, wild lady slippers in the woods, and lovely fawn lilies on grassy headlands. All this beauty inspired me then, and still does today. I am always reaching to express the spirit of what I see and feel in my art, whether it is painting, or combining color, texture and design with beads and wire. I like to think I may have inherited some of the reverence my Tlingit ancestors had for the world around them.

My early school years were in the one-room school house at Decatur Island where our teacher Miss Harris encouraged us to draw, and later high school and college art courses. I majored in graphic design at the University of Washington. It was a 5 year BFA program, but I left after 4 years to marry my high school sweetheart who was commissioned an officer in the navy.
In the 20 years Chuck was in the Navy we moved 14 times. I did volunteer art during this time, and took classes and workshops in Pennsylvania, California and Hawaii. We finally were able to come back home to Washington when Chuck retired in 1988, and we have lived in Everett WA since then.

I have taken classes at the Arts Umbrella in Bothel, and Art Supply Northwest in Everett. I have painted portraits on commission in oils, watercolor, and pastels. For the past 5 years I have painted weekly with a few supportive artist friends who inspire me by their own creativity.

I consider creating jewelry from beads and wire to be play, and don’t take it too seriously because it is such a joy. I love the colors and textures of blown glass and semi precious stones, particularly. They are my addiction. Like sticks of pastels ,or tins of watercolors, one can never have too many beads!

My jewelry is presently at The Arts of Snohomish Gallery in Snohomish Washington.