Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Dotterer.
Hi Sara, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Richmond, VA– from a young age, dance and the visual arts were integral to my development and self-expression. A dance teacher, Kendall Neely, in lower school remained my teacher until I graduated high school, and I believe I owe much of my creative development to the exposure she gave us to choreography, dance, and music. I got my B.A. in anthropology and studio art at a small liberal arts school in the mountains of Virginia, Washington, and Lee University. While in college, I began research on the effect that smartphones have on our movements and social interactions. That research was used my senior year for a 50-page anthropology thesis, a roomscale spatial installation for my art major, and set design/choreography for a final dance performance. At that time, I was beginning to use my interdisciplinary way of making to translate ideas from research to writing to performance to creating immersive experiences. After graduating, I moved to NYC to pursue brand strategy within advertising. I loved the way each strategy project felt very similar to the work I did in college – moving from research to visualizations and experiences within one “assignment,” although this time it was for a client. While in NYC, I attended a multitude of dance, art, and theatre shows, soaking up everything the city had to offer me. When the pandemic hit, I moved to Austin, Texas, and fell in love with the Texas people and sunshine (minus the summer). I applied to Southern Methodist University’s MFA program and got a full scholarship for the two-year program in interdisciplinary arts. While in Dallas, I again unified research, writing, and installation bringing in virtual and augmented reality. My research led to the development of a tool, “eco-interoception,” a word I created to describe the way in which I was using ecology learning (about plants, trees, fungi, and protista) to better understand myself along with other non-human ways of being in the world. Upon the completion of my MFA, I moved back to Austin, TX, and am now pursuing some combination of brand strategy, research, and multimedia arts!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s never a smooth road, but I find the bumps lead me down new pathways or offer new perspectives. It has been a struggle to funnel my creative energies into work that is fulfilling and sustaining. Graduate school was a huge investment of time and resources, and I am very thankful I could make it work, but it hasn’t been without its challenges! Navigating my twenties has been a time of high highs and low lows, but I believe that the creative practice I developed at a young age has given me something to return back to again and again. I look forward to the next few years of integrating the past decade of experiences into a career path that excites me and supports me. I believe that all of my hard work now to explore my interests will pay off in the decades to come!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
An ecotone is an ecological term for the overlapping area where two ecosystems meet and integrate (for example, a lake and mountain region). These “blurry” areas are extremely biodiverse and thus resilient– holding up and balancing our ecosystems. The ecotone is a lens I use in all of my work to deconstruct either-or thinking and pull from the resilience of in-between thinking. I live in my own ecotone as an extremely research-oriented strategist and visualizer of ideas who benefits from the many worlds I exist within, from research to eco-arts. I am as inspired by my brand strategy work as my artistic work educating students and designing intricate installations, only because they complement and improve one another. I excel at researching, building systems, and then bringing them to life with strategy, education, and art.
My artistic practice explores and visualizes the interconnectivity between the health of my body and the earth through cycles of growth and decay found in nature (namely plants and fungi). I am driven by the development of concepts and ideas as I work across media: printmaking, choreographing, video, foraging, ink making, sculpture, augmented/virtual reality, fiber, and biomaterials. In graduate school, I began experimenting with “eco-materials,” in other words, finding materials in alleyways and yards in Dallas (like leaves, branches, pinecones, flowers, etc.) and using them to make prints, inks/dyes, sculptures, etc. Graduate school gave me the concentrated time and space to think deeply about the materials I was using.
You can see learn more about my work here at www.saradotterer.com or www.saradottererstudio.com
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
My obsessive curiosity gives me forward momentum, and I feel that this movement forward into new careers, hobbies, friendships, etc, makes me a “successful” well-rounded person. Whenever I feel stuck, I can convince myself to find intrigue in the tiniest component of an activity, assignment, topic, person, place, or whatever it may be. This interest can give me enough energy to keep the ball rolling when a roadblock happens!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.saradotterer.com or www.saradottererstudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saradottererstudio/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-dotterer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPjEHe5WveiX42ecHQ97ggA
- Other: https://scholar.smu.edu/art_etds/23/
