SVMoA Blog

Sarah Sentilles—On the Power of the Arts & SVMoA

August 23, 2021
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Sarah Sentilles

On the power of the arts & SVMoA:

"When I visit SVMoA and attend their events, I’m reminded of the revolutionary and reparative power of the arts. Art gives me hope, and this hope is not naïve. It’s not romantic or small or abstract. It’s concrete: glue and paint, scissors and tape, words and drawings, songs and sculptures, book pages and ink and gouache and oil and canvas. It’s the certain knowledge that it’s possible to make something new."


"When we make art, we exercise the muscles we need to remake the world. The theorist Elaine Scarry calls art objects – sentence, cup, piece of lace, painting – fragments of world alteration. If individuals can make these smaller changes, she writes, if one person can alter the world in fragments, just think what can be imagined together, what might be possible in community: a total reinvention of the world."

—Sarah Sentilles, Author/Educator/Program Participant
Sarah Sentilles Writing Workshop
Sarah Sentilles Writing Workshop
Sarah Sentilles Writing Workshop