Otto Pierce is a sculptor- of space, wood, land, and form. This season he led the Sable Team in collaborative creative work, built dragons out of birch, created watery grottos deep in the woods, and found dancing figures in the trees.

Otto is also the Creative Director of The Sable Project- to see his full bio, click here.

Jessica Lee is a dancer, dance teacher, and arts administrator invested in environmental education and community-engagement. Her artistic work is inspired by place, grounded in both classical and contemporary training, and fueled by the joy of movement. This 2015 season, Jessica collaborated with Sable resident artists to make dances exploring themes of weight and suspension, building and breaking down, strength and trust. She was also honored to embody Pontus the Spider and lead Sable visitors through the woods as an Earth Fairy for Sable's Final Showcase.

Jessica is also Sable's dedicated Project Manager and 2015 Residential Coordinator. You could say she is the glue that holds Sable together, and the spark that keeps it running. See her full bio here.

Lily O’Hara was born in the Adirondack mountains of New York but after living in Vermont for two years, considers herself a full blown Vermonter – complete with farmers tan and quick wit. Along with creating the new gardens on the Sable land her intentions also extend to making the residents laugh into the night, experimenting new recipes with the bountiful harvest, absorbing as much knowledge through hands on labor, as it will allow, and sneaking in collaboration with an artist or two throughout the summer. 

Q & A with Lily:
How did you hear about Sable?
Meeting the creative director, Otto, this past winter gave me an opportunity to see the land in its rawest form. Intrigued immediately, I wanted to be enriched by what the project had to offer and offer what I had to enrich the project back.

What inspires you to make art?
Considering my “medium” is gardening, what inspires me to garden is this piece of land on which the garden dwells. Sable itself demands to be cared for, whether it be to till new beds, harvest the fruits of my labor, or sow a new crop, Sable’s intentions of survival and cultivating food for its residents and the community inspires me to keep practicing my medium.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
I am a potato. Not a freshly harvest potato from that season but one you have uncovered from last seasons crop. Simple, hearty, versatile, yet in order to get to those qualities you must dig down to reveal what is there. But, once the potato is uncovered from the mounds of dirt it is satisfying to get to know that potato and hold it in your hand as you ponder how it survived a harsh winter.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
The power to be able to read people's minds and understand why they subconsciously and consciously do things.

Elizabeth Weinstein is a movement artist from Philadelphia. She studied Gender and Sexuality Studies and Dance at Oberlin College and returned home to Philadelphia to study experimental hybrid performance with Headlong Performance Institute. Her body is her primary medium, and she delights in finding ways to wrap, submerge, remember, bury, and listen to her body in order to create interactive rituals and performance installations. Her creative process at Sable is fueled in large part by laying down-- on a mountain, a brush pile, a garden, stones, the soft places beneath trees, in mud-- and she does not want the land to forget the quiet impressions her body leaves in its wake. 

Q & A with Elizabeth:
How did you hear about Sable?
I heard about Sable through a friend from college, and after investigating it a bit more, I wanted to shout yes!yes! to all of its goals and visions.

What inspires you to make art?
I am inspired to make art by the people around me and the committed and vital relationships that creation necessitates. I am inspired to make art by my dreams, by improvisation, by the slow, random resuscitation of moments past and by the way my body recalls my history by way of my presence in the present. I am inspired to make art by my voracious appetite for aliveness.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
My spirit vegetable may be an artichoke because artichokes have sweet and tender hearts while being spiky and tough; they are multilayered but get more enjoyable the closer you are to the core; and some old poet named Hesiod who lived a really long time ago wrote that, “when the artichoke flowers, the chirping grasshopper sits in a tree and pours down his shrill song continually from under his wings in the season of wearisome heat, and then goats are plumpest and wine sweetest; women are most wanton, but men are feeblest.”

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
My dream superpower has always been to fly. It seems obvious, but I really would love to sore around the world, playing with the delights of flight as well as free airfare to any place in the world. 

Eugene McKeown is a visual artist and illustrator from Providence, RI. Eugene works in ink, print, and paint. At Sable, Eugene painted murals and created a series of ink drawings. Eugene’s work this summer was been greatly influenced by the trees and waters of the lush Vermont landscape.

Contact/Social Media Presence:
www.eugenemckeown.com
eugenemckeownart@gmail.com
eugenemckeown.tumblr.com
facebook.com/eugenemckeown

Masum Rumi is a freelance photographer, editor, and documentary filmmaker from New York City. He earned his BA from Skidmore College, an experience which shaped his understanding and appreciation for art and science. His love for nature brought him to Sable, where hefocused on expanding his creative photographic vision and documenting what Sable has to offer.   

Masum was The Sable Project's 2015 Photo/Video Intern. 

Q & A with Masum:

How did you hear about Sable?
I heard about sable from Facebook and through a mutual friend from while I was at Skidmore.

What inspires you to make art?
People around myself

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
I am a carrot because carrots are bright and rooted and sweet. Carrots go well with a lot of things and make you smile.

If you could have any super power what it would be?
If I could have a superpower I would be control over clouds. I could be anywhere, make it rain where it’s needed, also providing drinking water where necessary. 

Kate J. Truini is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Roxbury, CT. Kate finds inspiration in the natural world and in human rituals and experience, and is spending her summer at Sable with her hands in the dirt, song in her throat, and sun on her back.

Q & A with Kate:

Tell us about yourself!  
I am an art teacher, dorm parent and director of Environmental Sustainability Programs at a girl’s boarding school in Connecticut. I studied Interdisciplinary Art at Alfred University.

What is(are) your medium(s)?  
I am a performance artist. I also draw and sculpt, with direct influence from my performative practice, which places emphasis on duration, repetition, and attention to materiality.

How did you hear about Sable? 
My brother has a friend at Wheaton College who knows Otto!

What inspires you to make art? 
The human condition, the female experience, domesticity, faith, food, soil, night.

What is your spirit vegetable and why? 
Radish! I am grounded, vivid, (a little bitter), love water and sunshine, and am happiest with my toes in the dirt.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? 
I’d want to be like that fairy in Fern Gully who can make things grow wherever she touches. That, or being able to breathe underwater.

Andy Gallardo is a writer and hails from New York. She studied anthropology at Columbia University. After graduation, she worked in New York City as an affordable housing advocate. At Sable, she is focusing on writing and staging theatrical works. She enjoys listening to bluegrass and swimming. You can email her at agallardo.andrea@gmail.com. 

Q & A with Andy:

What inspires you to make art? –
Human behavior, history, and theatricality inspire me to write.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
I am a green bean. I am quiet, like most vegetables, and green. I also grow on a vine. I have pods, but they don’t define me. I hold my own as a raw creature of nature. I am a green bean.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
My superpower: converting any liquid into drinkable water.

Tyler Rai is a dancer and writer from New York City. Through dance, performance and writing, she investigates the relationship between human biology, environment and creative practice. At Sable, she is exploring the intersections between voice, movement and poetry as well as incorporating nature into her creative process. She will be a student at the Tamalpa Institute in California pursuing a certificate in Expressive Arts Therapy this September. She can be contacted at tylerrai100@gmail.com. 

Q & A with Tyler:

How did you hear about Sable?
Through a friend of a friend.

What inspires you to make art?
Other people making art, questions, joy, sadness, music, nature.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
I think an onion is my spirit vegetable because I am multi-layered, and while I seek rooting deep into the ground, I cannot help but pop up from the dirt.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
If I could have any superpower it would be flight. I would carry people with me high, high, high above the ground, in order to give the gift of a larger perspective.  I think this could save the world.

Dominique Saks is originally from the Big Island of Hawaii, and in more recent history has been living in Colorado.  She is a visual artist and enjoys working with drawing, printmaking and alternative photography.  During her time with the Sable Project Dominique would like to experiment with new mediums such as sculpture and performance, work collaboratively, and learn about living off-the grid and on the farm.  She also plans on frequenting the river, eating lots of vegetables, and building something to contribute to this beautiful place and community.

Her work can be found at www.cargocollective.com/dominiquesaks.

Q & A with Dom:

How did you hear about Sable?
My good friend told me about The Sable Project artist residency after finding out about the opportunity from his good friend who went to Middlebury.  Friend-of-a-friend grape vine effect.

What inspires you to make art?
I am inspired by the physicality of art making. I love processes that are active, fast, and gestural like drawing and printmaking.  These processes allow me to find a focused presence and creative flow that engages me with my surroundings and actions.  It is the process, rather that subject matter or concepts that inspires me to make art. 

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
My spirit vegetable is a pole bean because I like to climb up and find sunshine.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
Super fish abilities, I would like to breathe, see, and be fast and nimble underwater. 

Nicholas “Quazzy” Herd is a freelance Audio Designer for Film, Music, and Television currently living in New York City. Along with his love for curating and composing Sonic Landscapes, he is also a Yoga Instructor for Yoga To The People. Quazzy hopes to expand his perception of Sound Depth as well as Human Interactions within intimate spaces here at Sable, in order to gain a deeper understanding of community roles in macro and micro communities. He plans on posting his findings online, which include soundcloud.com/quazzy and “The Quazzy Faffle Show” fanpage on facebook.  

Q & A with the Quazzman:

What inspires you to make art? 
Translation

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
Garlic. It goes good with everything.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
Swag Like Sammie Davis

Emily Kadish, born and raised in Thetford, Vermont, creates visually stimulating prints and focuses on facial features, body, and the natural world for inspiration. Along with her artistic talent she possesses spot-on YouTube video impressions, impeccable cartwheels, and many years of farming experience at Cedar Circle Farm near her home town.

Tell us about yourself! 
I am a native Vermonter, studying to become a studio artist. I enjoy all sorts of learning, creating, and exploring. I particularly love spending time outside and being around people whom like to laugh.

What is(are) your medium(s)?
At the moment they are printmaking (intaglio and relief) and other 2-d drawings, acrylic painting, clay, and wood.

How did you hear about Sable?
I worked with Otto’s sister, Lucy, at a farm this past summer. She told me about Sable and when I looked into it I thought it was a wonderful and beautiful place that I would love to live and learn about it.

What inspires you to make art?
I think everything around me inspires what I make, particularly landscapes and nature, lines and movement. I find that people inspire much of work as I often include faces or bodies. Sometimes it’s a particular thing that I see (in life or in my head), but sometimes it is just some sort of feeling/thought that I can only explain with an image.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
My spirit vegetable is an eggplant. Although it was given to me on the field crew at the farm I work at, I believe it to be because of an eggplants slightly weird but comforting manner, and their surprising versatility as a vegetable.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
If I could have one superpower it would be to make everyone thoroughly listen. People like to hear themselves and decide to be ignorant. Of all the disasters on this planet, they could be changed and bettered if people thought critically and opened their mind to different ways of thinking. 

Sarae Snyder is a dancer from Harrisville, NH and Ojai, CA. She recently graduated from Middlebury College and will soon be relocating to the San Francisco area. Here at Sable, she is particularly excited about exploring the limitations of outdoor, off-grid creation and the possibilities for artistic expansion through varied collaborations. As a choreographer, she is interested in how content emerges from otherwise “meaningless” physicality. Her other interests include photography and foreign language study.

Q & A with Sarae:

What inspires you to make art?
Interactions and relationships between people, my own mental fixations and bodily sensations, an appreciation for the work of other artists or collaborators, and the need to move and be moved.

What is your spirit vegetable and why?
My spirit vegetable is broccoli because I was drawn to it from a young age.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
FLyInG!