Member Directory
MFA candidate SUNY New Paltz Ceramics
I am interested in socio-political activism through ceramic art.
Since her arrival in 1992 Carla Rae Johnson has been an active participant in the Peekskill arts community, exhibiting sculpture, drawings and performance pieces, as well as curating exhibitions and organizing events. In 2010, Carla Rae Johnson began the very successful First Monday Salon series at the BeanRunner Café/Gallery. The salons have played a vital role in building and maintaining the arts community here for the past ten years.
Carla Rae Johnson is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Drawing, a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Sculpture and a 1990 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2015, she was awarded an artist residency at the, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, NY and was honored to be a “50 for 50” Outstanding Artist by Arts Westchester. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo, invitational, and curated shows in museums and galleries locally, nationally, and in New York City. Works by Carla Rae Johnson have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, The New Haven Register, The Journal News, and The Times Herald Record.
Carla Rae Johnson has a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Iowa. After over 38 years an arts educator, Carla Rae recently retired from her position as a Full Professor of Art at Westchester Community College in Valhalla where she taught from 2003 to 2016. She is now delighted to devote her energies to art, full time. She currently resides on Nelson Avenue, where she maintains her studio.
Artist Bio
Sarah Haviland is a sculptor and installation artist whose recent work focuses on cross-cultural human-bird imagery and the environment. She was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship for creative research in Taiwan in 2018-2019. Her abstract-figurative sculptures and public art installations have been exhibited widely in galleries, parks, museums, healthcare, and educational settings, including commissions at the Flatiron Prow Art Space in Manhattan; Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ; Pratt Sculpture Park in Brooklyn; NYU Langone Medical Center; and the National Marine Museum in Taiwan. Other awards include a Creativity Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, fellowships from the New York and New Jersey State Arts Councils, and residencies at Sculpture Space, Skowhegan, and Yaddo. Sarah Haviland was born in Kansas City, Kansas, grew up in New Jersey, and earned a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Hunter College. She teaches at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.
Artist Statement
Images of real birds combine with mythical figures in my recent sculptures and installations. These artworks reflect human-avian connections in cultures around the globe as well as contemporary societal and environmental issues. Using simple materials and flights of fancy, they call attention to wonderment as well as to climate change, migration of birds and people, and our own psychic condition.
My sculptures often strike a balance between abstract form and human identity. Rooted in gesture, these simplified figures embody layers of distilled emotion and archetypal presence. They acknowledge contradictions, combining strength and subtlety, movement and stability, ancient and contemporary outlooks. Sometimes referencing historical images of women, my works also investigate habitation, place, and the environment. The sculptures range from intimate to large scale, created with a range of materials such as wire mesh, steel, resin, bronze, bamboo, and mixed media.
