Sarah Lopez - SOS Grant Awardee

The Community Arts Partnership is proud to support artists through our grant programs! This month our featured artist is Sarah Lopez, recipient of a Strategic Opportunity Stipend ("SOS").

((Written by CAP Intern, Ithaca College Writing major, Peter McNerney) 

The Community Arts Partnership is proud to support artists through our grant programs! This month our featured artist is Sarah Lopez, recipient of a Strategic Opportunity Stipend (“SOS”). The grant gives Tompkins County artists the opportunity to further their art careers (anywhere in the world)!  

Sarah is a gifted Polish, Mexican- American fiber artist who specializes in hand-dyed and hand-spun art yarn on canvas, also known as fiber painting.

Sarah began her artistic journey knitting scarves to feel a connection to her grandmothers who used different plant and animal fibers to knit clothing for their families. Driven by curiosity, Sarah learned how to hand-dye and hand-spin her own art yarn which she then used to make dresses. After the dresses went unused for years, she decided to recycle them, unraveling hundreds of hours of work in the process. 

Left with a mountain of handmade yarn and a desire to showcase each unique strand, Sarah began experimenting with gluing her handmade fiber to canvas. She enjoyed the feeling of fiber between her fingers, so she rolled small pieces into swirls before applying them to the canvas. With this first experimental project, she gave birth to her unique medium of art: fiber painting. 

Sarah now seeks to use her art to explore various themes of identity, healing and mental health. All of her art yarn is still handmade using wool from a local farm in Trumansburg. She hand-dyes all of it before blending colors and other fibers together. Once everything is blended, she uses a spinning wheel to create art yarn for her paintings. She then individually places and glues each piece of yarn to the canvas to simulate brush strokes, resulting in vivid images with a unique look and feel that truly captures the viewer’s imagination and wonder.  

After participating in a few local group art exhibits, she saw an opportunity to gain exposure through solo shows and applied for and received CAP’s SOS grant.

Sarah was awarded funds for three solo exhibit opportunities to display her art around Ithaca. Her first was at Greenstar Cooperative Market, the second was at The Downstairs, and the third exhibit was at the Satori Hair Salon. She used grant funds to create 22 new fiber paintings and two immersive community activities.

Sarah has three events planned for 2025. She is part of the March Mad Lust group exhibition at MIX Gallery which will be on display until March 29th. Her first curated group show is themed around Brazil, featuring music and movement performances along with art from local artists. The opening night is August 8, from 6pm-9pm at Hair. Color. Art on the South Hill Business Campus. She will also have a solo show featuring new fiber paintings at Library Place at 105 W Court Street in Ithaca in September. 

To learn more about Sarah, check out her website at: thefiberpainter.com