From CRMS to Clay: Sara Jensen ’19 Returns as Alumni Visiting Artist

We’re thrilled to welcome back Sara Jensen ’19, who returned to campus as our Alumni Visiting Artist. Since graduating from CRMS, Sara has pursued her passion for ceramics with dedication and creativity. She earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and established herself as an emerging artist in Taos, New Mexico.

Sara’s artistic journey began to crystallize in an unexpected moment at CRMS—a single class period with AO Forbes that explored the concept of “sense of place.” That conversation about what it means to feel deeply connected to a location became the conceptual foundation for her senior thesis at RISD and continues to influence her work today.

Her senior thesis project, The Geological Strata of Memory, dissected the important places in her life through topographical maps and the exact routes she’d traveled. Using coil-building techniques, Sara stacks these locations as layers, creating sculptures that represent how different places blend to shape identity. It’s a powerful visualization of how geography becomes biography.

When asked about CRMS’s influence on her path, Sara reflects on the school’s recurring question: How do you lead a meaningful life? Whether in Dave Meyers’ Good Life Project, philosophy classes with AO Forbes and Mark Clark, or conversations on Wilderness trips, CRMS students regularly grapple with what creates fulfillment and which values drive a purposeful life.

“The choice to go to art school came from evaluating how my day-to-day life would create meaning,” Sara says. “I decided that if I followed this dream of being an artist, being able to work with my hands and create would ideally give me the best odds of creating fulfillment.”

After graduating from RISD in 2023, Sara moved to Taos, where she spent her first year as a resident at the Taos Ceramic Center, teaching classes and creating work for exhibitions. Now, she works as an apprentice to artist Logan Wannamaker, splitting her time between her own creative practice in their gallery space and collaborative work with Logan and four other apprentices.

One interesting and meaningful aspect of Sara’s current work is the community she has created through firing the anagama kiln. This is a wood-fired kiln that requires at least six people and two weeks of around-the-clock attention. The woodfiring process begins with weeks of wood preparation and 2- 3 days to fill the 22-foot-long kiln with around 1,500 pieces of ceramic work. Once loaded, the firing continues for 4-5 days with someone at the kiln all hours of the day. “We are throwing wood into the kiln every couple of minutes for the five days to reach 2400 degrees Fahrenheit.” Most of the pieces in the kiln are unglazed, and the flame that rushes through the kiln creates a unique surface design on the pieces. It then takes a week to cool down before the kiln can be unloaded. “It is a labor of love and collaboration which brings us all closer,” Sara shares. This spirit of collaboration and shared experience echoes the values she learned during her time at CRMS.

True to her CRMS roots, Sara’s creative process is deeply intertwined with outdoor adventure. She finds inspiration while skiing, trail running, biking, and hiking through a variety of landscapes. “I always think of new ideas or ways to create while running, hiking, biking, or skiing,” she explains. The connection between physical movement through landscape and artistic creation feels like a natural extension of the CRMS philosophy.

Sara recently installed a sculpture on Main Street in Carbondale. This was a meaningful full-circle moment. This sculpture was based on Mt. Sopris. “It was dedicated to the feeling of home and the town’s relationship to this mountain that we look up to every day.” Sara always tries to photograph her work in the environments that they are inspired by, and having this sculpture be able to live in Carbondale is the perfect (temporary) home. 

Sara’s favorite CRMS memories capture the school’s unique blend of adventure, humor, and connection. On a mountaineering trip, Grace Holmstrom ‘19 and Sara thought it would be the funniest prank to carry around a watermelon and a cantaloupe and break them out on the last night as a crazy surprise that we carried them the entire trip (we laughed way harder than anyone else when we shared our melons).  On another backpacking trip, Sara recalls Ella Jepsen ‘17 intertwining all their stories into a fantasy land she created. This choose-your-own-adventure storytelling game kept them entertained all day.

She also recalls the wonderfully human moments with faculty—Amanda Leahy laughing so hard during a soccer drill that it became contagious, Dan Pittz’s spontaneous marker throws to keep students focused, Kayo Ogilby’s creative challenges on trips. These moments of authentic connection and shared joy form the foundation of what makes CRMS special.

Sara’s advice to current CRMS students is simple but powerful: “Keep up with your classmates as you move on from CRMS. The connections you make while at CRMS are pretty special, and it’s such a small world—you never know when you will get the chance to reconnect with CRMS Alumni.

As our visiting Alumni Artist, Sara has work on display in the CRMS Bar Fork Gallery from September 1 through November 15. During that time, she spent two days on campus collaborating with faculty and students in the classroom, speaking at our All-School Meeting, and presenting at two Lunch & Learn events on campus. We’re grateful to Sara for returning to campus to share her journey and inspire current students to follow their creative passions, wherever they may lead.