I’m Here, Still Here awarded Best-In-Show

I’m Here, Still Here, by Hopedale artist Sarah Alexander, has received the Best-in-Show prize in this year’s Art on the Trails. Juror Anne Alexander (no relation to the artist), made the selection from 15 works. The prize comes with $100 and is noted in the poetry and art chapbook that is published and shared at the closing event on September 11th.

Juror Anne Alexander said about the work, “I selected Sarah Alexander’s piece I’m Here, Still Here as best in show for her meaningful sculpture which to me comments on the state of our endangered environment. It has a powerful presence in its field location, and demonstrates excellent craftsmanship, and hours of thoughtful labor to complete.”

The 8′ tall sculpture is made from 160 lbs of cold hammered and welded steel, and sits at the top of the lower meadow at Beals Preserve. It took hundreds of hours over three months to craft. Sarah says about the work, “This work speaks to isolation in all its forms and the effect that it has on us. It might be self-imposed, or from illness, depression, grief, or incarceration. We create our own prisons sometimes.” The outer cage is galvanized and should not rust, while the creature in the cage is left untreated it will change with the elements over time revealing the price of isolation.

Sarah Alexander is a multi-disciplinary artist working on paper, canvas, & sculpting with steel. She is the Director of Visual Arts where she manages the gallery, art department, and teaches teens and adults at Hopkinton Center for the Arts. She is a Core Artist Member at Fountain Street Gallery in Boston. This is the second year that Sarah has had work in Art on the Trails.

Juror Anne Alexander is a sculptor from Windham, Maine who works in the mediums of carved wood and stone and modeled clay. Her smaller work is exhibited in galleries and larger human scale sculptures are frequently shown in exterior, temporary, sited sculpture shows in Maine, New England, and beyond. The driving theme of her work is exploring and enhancing the spiritual and physical connection to the natural world.

Ms. Alexander has received numerous grants and residencies including: two Pollack- Krasner Foundation grants, five Maine Arts Commission Project Grants, and a 9 month Fulbright to study the art and artifacts of the Taino Indian. Recently in 2017 & 2019, she was awarded two funded residencies in Maine at Monson Arts and The Maine Farmland Trust. In 2020, she was awarded a Maine Crafts Apprenticeship Grant to learn to carve sculptures in granite.