Sarah Quenon jewelry

I find that often times artists are inspired outside of their own medium. An actor is inspired by a painter. A photographer is inspired by music. A sculptor is inspired by a dancer. And so on.

In 2001 I had a short-lived, unsuccessful career as a waitress at a restaurant that identified itself as serving “interior Mexican cuisine”. They had an exact replica of this Frida painting:

I was fascinated by how strange it was and never walked past it without giving it an extended glance. One of my fellow waiters was disgusted that I could find this painting attractive. Which made it all the more endearing to me.

That same year I saw Ultra Baroque: Aspects of Post Latin American Art at the MOMA in San Francisco where I fell in love with this artist:

Adriana Varejão

It was a huge exhibit but I spent most of the day looking only at her pieces and then bought asked my dad to buy me the book on the way out. To this day she is one of my favorite artists of all time.

In college I had to write an artist’s bio, which I detested. I described my art as being “perverse”, my teacher felt this was apt.

I’ve always been a sloppy, lazy artist. Passionate, but lazy. I’ve poured myself into several paintings, but I’ve never poured myself into painting. Not entirely.

I hated school. It took me 8 years to graduate college because I never went to class/did the work/paid attention. Not even in my favorite classes. I took Color and Design, which was required for my major. Due to my anal-retentiveness, meticulous nature and above average ability to follow instructions to a T, I was the teacher’s pet. She held up my homework every time something was due to show the class how the assignment was supposed to look. It’s really the only time I’ve ever been the the teacher’s pet. Even then, I failed to show up to class 6 times in a single semester.

This was my final project for the class. It’s a tessellation. Biggest pain in the ass. Looks simple enough but you blend one square of paint wrong or accidentally paint over the line into another square and you pretty much have to start the whole thing over again. Otherwise it won’t “work”.

Had I known design classes would come so naturally to me I would have just chosen that as my major. A day 8 years late and a dollar $200,000 short.

I do love art and I especially love design and composition. I make my best effort to avoid the obvious at all costs. It would be easy for me to mass produce the latest trends in jewelry, but that does nothing for me as a designer. It doesn’t set me apart from anyone else or make my product more desirable. And it demands little from me as creative individual. If you want to evolve as any kind of artist or designer you have to demand more from yourself.

I’ve never been dedicated to much of anything in my life. But when you know you’re good at something, when you feel you have something to offer and people are constantly impressed by something you’re doing, you have to go after it to see what all is waiting for you just underneath. We all have so much more to offer the world than we generally produce with our daily efforts. What is prettiest or easiest isn’t always interesting. In fact, it often times isn’t.

-Sarah