A brain tumor left Molly Sawyer stumbling early in life. It was through the plasticity of clay that she found her feet at a young age in this world. After earning a degree in ceramics from Guilford College, she moved to New York City where her studio years were spent simultaneously studying the human and equine figures in clay and wax while attending the New York Studio School and the Art Students League of New York. She learned techniques to cast this work herself through the League and Studio School, as well as through studio work around the city.
The movement toward the abstract and conceptual grew out of a prolonged involvement with breast cancer. Sawyer’s work follows an exploratory path reflecting realizations that come through experiences such as this as well as the earlier brain tumor. The emphasis within the work is on the search for inner balance and the human instinct to move forward regardless of the obstacles life presents. The work is deeply personal and introspective. Through it, she comes full circle to understand that as the work expresses strength in human spirit, it also sews a continuing thread through the knowledge of the closeness of death. Through this work, she is an observer bearing witness to the natural world and its inevitable, cyclical changes. She is cataloging the connection between the temporal delicacy of our lives to that of the entropic process of the earth.
Molly Sawyer is from Atlanta, Georgia and currently resides in Western North Carolina. She earned a degree in Ceramics from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC and continued her sculptural studies at The New York Studio School and The Art Students League of New York. Sawyer shows regularly in both solo and group exhibitions. Among these are the Asheville Art Museum, Reece Museum, CAM Raleigh, Western North Carolina University, Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, North Greenville University, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Virginia. The National Sculpture Society in New York City awarded Sawyer the Beverly Hoyt Robertson Award. She has appeared in numerous speaking engagements as Visiting Artist and has attended art residencies in Connecticut, Wyoming, Washington state and Ireland. Molly Sawyer’s work can be found in collections both private and corporate throughout the United States. She is included in Mandarin Hotel New York, Ritz Carlton Boston, AC Hotel MidTown Atlanta, and Mohegan Sun Casino.