Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Mulligan.
Sarah, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
It’s funny because I never in a million years thought I could be an artist up until about ten months ago when I started working for my friend and fellow metal artist Omar Wysong from Topanga Patina. One day I just happened to be working on my house, I had just built a pergola in my backyard, and Omar happened to stop by. He was complaining about how much work he had, and no one to help him because so far none of the guys he had hired could do it right and the work was piling up. I was working from home doing medical billing for a few years now which was literally boring me to death and which was getting harder and harder to actually sit down and focus on. So I said “You know what, I can help you,” he said sure ok let’s try it, but the next day it was kind of forgotten about. I think neither of us thought the other one was being serious so it was left like that as I continued to try to work at my real job. I kept having this strong gut feeling to just go over to his house, and one night I ended up over there because my friend wanted to ask him and his girl something. This time I said I was serious and so I went over the next day to work. As it turned out, I ended up having a knack for cutting steel, and he soon taught me how to weld as well. So one day as I was throwing away the scraps of metal left over from the steel aguave plant I had just cut, some of the scraps fell on the floor, and when I looked down, I saw something beautiful in the way they had fallen. I asked if I could take home some of the scraps to make something to put on my freshly painted, bare white walls and he said sure, they were being thrown away anyways and that was the beginning of my compulsive need to make art. I seriously can’t stop myself from feeling an incessant need to keep creating and evolving in my process.
Since discovering this talent that I didn’t even know I have, it has changed everything for me. No longer do I feel the emptiness of that dreary mundane existence of an unfavorable past with no light at the end of the tunnel for the future. Instead, I find myself getting up every morning with purpose and direction and hope. I am filled with gratitude and filled with satisfaction as I gaze back at something I have created. I am lucky to have a supportive fiancé that lets me get lost in my art as I need time to keep creating and would not be able to afford it if not for him. With our three kids and work, I find I have to be the first one awake and the last to sleep in my pursuit of this calling. But it is a happy and fulfilled place I am in now, and for once I am comfortable in my own skin knowing I am where I am supposed to be and doing what I am supposed to be doing. Finally feel comfortable in my own skin knowing I am where I’m supposed to be and doing what I am supposed to be doing.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I create large abstract metal wall sculptures. I use scrap metal that I cut, weld and paint, hence the name abscraptionist, that I like to call myself when I describe what I do. I am an action painter and welder, and my inspiration comes from the music I listen to as I create my masterpieces and the metal itself as I create from an impulsive, in the moment place that sees something and runs with the idea. I hope my artwork inspires people to find their own “muchness” to realize there is potential beauty in everything around us, even if it is being thrown away or discarded.
Any advice for aspiring or new artists?
As I am really a very new artist, having only discovered this about ten months ago, I am in my lessons to still be learned phase. All I can say is just keep creating, and you will keep evolving in your craft, no matter what anyone else says. As I am continuously snubbed by art galleries and art fairs maybe because I work with metal and not on canvas or maybe because I am self-taught with no background in art, nevertheless, I continue onward and upward in my pursuit of mastering my calling. I should really be asking advice rather than giving advice in this department because I have yet to figure it out myself.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
You can follow my work on www.instagram.com/sarah_mulligan_art/ and check out my website www.abscrapt.com and please contact me there if interested in any of my pieces.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.abscrapt.com
- Phone: 18183226241
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: Www.instagram.com/sarah_mulligan_art
- Facebook: Www.facebook.com/sarahmulligan/
- Twitter: Www.twitter.com/smulli88
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