My final season of Life

Feedback from Sarah Poole

My name is Sarah. I am a mom of middle school age boys and my husband teaches math at and international school, I received a BFA in fine arts from Oregon State University way back in 1994. I am an American citizen, but presently I live in Kiev, Ukraine.

In University I found a natural inclination towards sculpture and 3D art so I focused on this while there and pursued skills in making bronze sculptures and works carved from stone. I loved it but found this sort of boundary work outside of school hard to keep on doing.

Drawing and painting have always been somewhat difficult for me, but now that I am about to be 50 years of age and I have done many interesting things with my life and am almost done raising three great boys I want to tackle the 2D arts of drawing and painting.

Creating art is a must for me, I resonate with John Muir the mountain climber when he said,“the mountains are calling and I MUST go” – good weather or poor; tired or bursting with eagerness; it matters not, because the mountains themselves really are actually calling. I want to be in them, up them, challenged and transformed by their terrain; ravished and refreshed by their beauty. “I must go.” For me it is not the mountains that are calling but the process of drawing and painting and making art.

Color has become quite a passion for me recently and I love the beauty it brings to life. I want to wield it and be part of the beauty it brings to life. I also love the feel of the graphite pencil on paper and want to capture many of the unique things I see in my international life. I am alive when I create and I feel I have finally found the place I belong in the world. As Eric little said about running, “I feel God’s pleasure when I run.” I feel it when I create.

As my boys are growing up and finding their own places in the world I have more time to return more fully to the process of creating and the hunger to learn new skills and discover new mediums as Muir said, “I want to be in it, caught up by it, challenged and transformed by it’s terrain; ravished and refreshed by it’s beauty.”

Everything Vladimir and Natalie do is the best that is out there as far as art training is concerned. I loved their Drawing and Anatomy Courses and would love to do the painting course as well.

It is my final season of life I and I will not waste the resource if it were given to me. With it I would paint and paint and paint some more. I would be the happiest person on the planet and perhaps I would make something that would make the world I am in more beautiful.

Sarah