Conversations with Sara Hubbs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Hubbs.

Hi Sara, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I was a creative kid. My parents provided an environment that encouraged that freedom and nurtured my art. I was also a disciplined student and an athlete who was always moving. When I went to college, I envisioned a more conventional path, but an artist friend and mentor suggested I major in art. I went into it without knowing what it meant and studied painting as an undergrad at ASU. I went to grad school for visual art not long after and spent 8 years on the East Coast, where I continued making work. After I moved back to Tucson, a grant project took me to the Sonoran Glass School. I was struck by the medium of glass and learned how to blow glass during Covid. I loved how I could use my body to do my work, how I relied on others to assist in the making, and how the medium is full of never-ending challenges and discovery.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Living artistically, embracing my creativity and how my brain works, is the easiest and most rewarding. The struggle is always finding ways to keep doing the work. It’s hard to fit artistic life into a conventional one with financial and career success benchmarks that don’t apply across all professions and life timelines. I’ve had to step off the path at different moments, so I often struggle between where I am and where I think I should be.

Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us a bit more about your work.
I am a painter turned sculptor. I love materials and work with many, but nothing like glass. My art is really about giving form to unseen connections. I use the process of making my work as a metaphor for the changing nature of relationships, specifically the experience of being both mother and daughter. I look for objects in my environment as the basis for the shapes of the molds I blow glass into. Objects we live with are symbols of more profound meaning and part of our relational experiences. How I layer glass processes, casting, blown, kiln, and cold-working methods mirrors how our bodies are made and re-made during certain stages of life and in death. My work is about what shape can hold or communicate. The new forms I create always hold onto what needs to be added.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sarahubbs.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sara.e.hubbs/

Image Credits
The first image of me working is by Jill Richards. All images of the art are by Maya Hawk.