WEST STREET & WEST COAST
WORKS FROM TWO WINTERS
January 13 - February 20, 2026
Featuring WORKS ON PAPER BY SARAH TURNER
Reception: February 5th from 5:00 - 8:00 pm
Gallery Hours Saturdays Noon to 5 PM
STATEMENT
Two series of works, two counter responses to long winters. One, a series of quiet ‘burn drawings’ which give into the winter stillness of home in New England’s landscape. The other, a set of photographs that resist winter’s muted colors and reach instead for West Coast exuberance.
West Coast: I Saved My Inks (photographs). · Some years ago, in a winter in the Pacific Northwest, I printed from a studio perched high on a hill facing west. Though days were short, the view of winter sunsets were a daily gift. That winter, I resisted stillness and quiet - I looked for exuberance. I indulged in color-rich and viscous pigment printed onto paper. And, I saved my inks. Carefully folded wax paper packets made a grid structure behind the messy body of the ink. Photographed, these became bodies, animals, symbols. I’ve always thought they were meant for deep winter - the Januaries and Februaries.
West Street: Burn Drawings · Last winter, quiet days and simple routine slowed me down to notice rural western Massachusetts. Winter rabbits still, then bolting. Groups of turkeys moving slowly across our field. In late afternoons, a resident owl swooping from the forest edge to a hunting spot in tall pines near our drive. Buckets, a favorite household item, carried kindling, caught sap, re-potted houseplants, the only bright green around. Colder and quieter, last winter had me holding on to my totems, my lucky charms, the things that ground and comfort when New England goes brown and grey. And in these ‘burn drawings’, a gentle reminder of my jewelry training - steel turned delicate, held in the hand, making something precious.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Sarah Turner is a teacher, educational leader, and artist trained in the Northwest, refined in the Midwest and now based in Massachusetts. As an artist, Sarah’s work and interests have centered on the objects and materials formed by a background in metalsmithing and woodworking, with an early commitment to the field of contemporary jewelry. Now, her work shows the influences of printmaking, graphic design, and textile practices, as well as a continued appreciation for everyday objects and the idiosyncrasies of vernacular regional culture. Sarah’s studio practice serves as a counter-balance to the analytical, strategic, and relational work of educational and non-profit leadership. Studio practice allows her to turn to quicker, easier, instinctual ways of working, where logic, reason, and good judgment aren’t required.
Born and raised in Wooster, Ohio, Sarah received a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from Smith College and a Certificate in Metalsmithing from the Oregon College of Art & Craft. She earned a Master's of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She splits her creative time between a vibrant artist cooperative in Boston and a quiet studio in Western Massachusetts, surrounded by farmland and forest.
For more: sarahturnerprojects.com
About the Gallery at 249 A
Gallery at 249 A features rotating art exhibitions and special arts events. The space is an evolving project of the 249 A Street Cooperative, one of Massachusetts’s first limited-equity live/work cooperative for artists. The building, which is home to more than 45 artists and their families, has served as a model for artists’ housing nationwide and was key in the growth of the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC). The 249 A Street Cooperative celebrated its 40th anniversary with the opening of this gallery space in September 2024.
This program has been made possible in part through the fiscal sponsorship of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, Inc., with funding provided by South Boston Community Development Foundation and the City of Boston’s Project 80 Fund. The views expressed in this program are those of the artists and do not reflect the views of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, Inc.
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Feb 23, 2026 to Apr 3, 2026 Lisa Knox and Company · Crit Group, A Meeting of Four Studios
Apr 9, 2026 to May 24, 2026 Anna Win · New Work
May 28 to July 5 Jane Deutsch · New Work
July 9 to August 20 Dan Osterman · Works on Paper and Board