Sarah Flood-Baumann is from the place that races horses every first Saturday in May. She recently snagged her MFA degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Graphic Design program and she lives a semi-nomadic military-spouse lifestyle in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Currently operating as a one-woman design shop, she freelances and wears many design hats that include everything from branding to book design.

Statement

In the book Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, author Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen wrote,

“As light represents the archetype of masculine energy, darkness suggests the power of the feminine, and it makes an intuitive sense that the experience of healing may be associated with darkness. Darkness is a condition of the beginning. The body first comes into being in darkness. It is nurtured, as a seed, in darkness.”

These charcoal and water prints were the result of the battle with chronic migraines and literally living my days in darkness. I did not trust my body or my self to heal or to be whole. After a strange grounding exercise that went bust, I discovered the beauty of charcoal mixing with water in my tiny apartment bathroom sink. Noticing that this mixture wasn’t innately beautiful or considered traditional graphic design, I still felt connected to the movement, darkness, and moodiness of the the mixture. It felt right and of my own. Beautiful. I pulled out my camera and began photographing what I saw. I finally trusted myself that even if something isn’t traditionally beautiful, it can be. I trusted the process of making, exploring and finally felt some light in my darkness.