Portfolio
Sara Dobbs
Bird Catcher
Installation at the Seattle Centre’s Founder Court
Wood, bolts, paint
2023 - 2024
Commissioned by the Seattle City Office of Arts and Culture.
Wilbie Farm - Brand Visuals
Top: Logo
Middle: Photos, fresh sheet template, and price signs
Bottom: Recipe cards
Looped Daily
selected images from a series
GIFs made from digitally edited paper cut outs
2024
Left: The Seeds Didn’t Germinate
Middle: We Ran Out of Compost
Right: Nothing Grew Because the Seeds were Stolen
Fish Ladder
Sara Dobbs
Acrylic paint, wood, wire, and rope
41 x 16 in
2019
Left: Installed on a painted wall at Embassy Gallery (Edinburgh, Scotland).
Right: Detail of painting.
By looking at the waterways of the Pacific Northwest, Fish Ladder explores the power dynamics between ecosystems and societal structures. The imagery comes from the Bonneville Lock and Dam, downstream from The Bridge of the Gods in Oregon.
Salvamader - Brand Visuals
Top: packaging labels
Bottom Left: Logo
Salvamader is a family-owned farm and business operating on Vashon Island, WA. They make handcrafted CBD salves from farm-fresh herb oil infusions. I worked with them to create a logo, packaging, signs, and market display for their products.
Phaser Magazine : Cover Art
Pencil drawing digitally edited
A4
2023
Cover art for Phaser, a student'-led magazine at the University of Oxford that focuses on the music and fashion industries.
The Grasshopper : Iteration IV
Acrylic paint, canvas, cotton, stuffing, and greyboard
9 x 12 x 6 ft
2019
Bottom: The Grasshopper displayed as collage components
The Grasshopper is an installation that explores creative leaps of faith. Each component of the collage can be reconfigured to create new compositions. The subject comes from Aesop's The Ant and the Grasshopper. Instead of preparing for the winter by gathering food, the grasshopper makes music. The changing compositions of the installation and the fractured ladder explore the ambiguity in the value judgment and final results of choosing creativity over practicality.
Fishing Trip
Left: Photograph of a QR code sticker attached to wooden plaque
Right: A selection of the animations that the QR codes linked to.
2023
Fishing Trip is an interactive installation. It is a collection of short animations (GIFS) made from digitally edited pencil drawings linked to QR codes. I placed these QR codes near water to create a walking exhibition along the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, on the Southern Oregon coast. Viewers could view each animation by using their phones to “catch” each “fish.
Mr. Rooster
Images from pages of a picture book.
2022
Food Preservation Initiative - Brand Visuals
2022 - 2024
Top Left: Promotion for a fundraising event,.
Top Right: Infographic showing the programme’s approach to excess food.
Bottom Row: Illustrations used on the website, fundraising raffle ticket, and and a bouquet card.
Swan Series
pencil drawings
9 x 12 in
2022
Part of a series of drawings that explore the repetition that forms social expectations, patterns, and bonds.
Cultivation Series: Motif, Pattern, and Instruction
Hardcover books
8 x 10 in
2022
A series that shows my process through a collection of drawings from Wilbie Farm and other natural sources. Each book builds on the previous one: Pattern is made from elements in Motif and Instruction is made from elements in Pattern. In Instruction, ideas are proposed but not executed.
Soil Building
Sara Dobbs
Acrylic paint, wood, paper, metal wire, metal dowel, string, acetate, and nails
6 ft x 3 ft x 7 in
2020
Part of an installation that explores the process of building topsoil. Wooden blocks are used as the structure of the piece. QR codes were placed into the work that linked to GIFs showing closeups of the ants’ actions. Another component of the piece was a collection of wood blocks of various shapes and sizes (similar to the ones above) that could be used by anyone to build new configurations. Cut-outs of shapes and bugs were included that could be placed within the constructed buildings.
Stubborn as a Mule
Paper and thread
4.25 x 11 in
2022
A zine made from digitally edited pencil drawings (drawings originally 9 x 12 in). The rope that intersects the zine can be pulled, closing the zine and forcing the mule and farmer together, making it unclear who is winning the tug-of-war.
Catfished
Left: Zine
Right: Scan of paper dolls, acrylic paint and paper, 6 x 4 inches each
2021
Catfished is a project that explores the construction of societal identity through pattern and repetition. A catfish is a term for someone online who pretends to be someone they are not. The piece is composed of paper dolls and a zine. The zine illustrates instructions on how to make (misleading) paper dolls. The paper dolls are made by following the instructions from the zine. These are some of the compositions that can be made to disguise the initial identity of the fish doll.