About​

Bio

Currently based in Eastern TN, Sarazen is a fiber artist specializing in dimensional wool paintings using a variety of materials, including wool, silk, paper, feathers and fiction. She began her fiber arts journey in the early 1970’s learning embroidery. Her skills also include sewing, knitting, designing, crochet, spinning, wet felting, dry felting and writing. She began wool painting in 2014 and in 2018 began developing the world of Broken Elms. Her work is inspired by themes of identity, authenticity, vulnerability, psychology, the complexity of reality and the terrible beauty of nature itself.

A Bailey Opportunity Grant winner and the 2022 President of the Tennessee Valley Handspinners Guild, she works surrounded by lush forests and the legacy of the Manhattan Project.

Statement

I’ve been doing fiber craft in one form or another since I was a toddler. Today when it comes to fiber I can embroider, sew, knit, crochet, nalebind, spin yarn, and felt in several different flavors among other things. I love the warmth of wool, and how clothing crafts go back to our oldest roots. I love that Egyptian mummies were wrapped in linen, and that linen survives today after thousands of years. How cool is that?!

I also love history. I believe that to know who we are we have to know where we come from. I don’t think of this as an angry grudge holding rumination, but a mediation on the struggles people go through in life, amongst each other and more importantly within themselves. So for me, things like the peeling layers of wallpaper in an old home take my breath away. If you are remodeling an old place you could be revealing old things no one has see in decades, or even longer than a century. In that way were are always surrounded by ghosts. What were their lives like?

Today it’s commonplace to despair. Even with all our technology, many people find it so difficult to find meaning in life, depression and suicide are epidemic. I don’t think that life has to be like that

In my artwork I try to reconnect to the magic in the world. Wonder, awe, curiosity and hope, these things can light the way in the darkness, even when life is hard and in some ways may not get better. It’s true there are some problems that we can’t solve, but what we can do is be there for each other through the uncertainty.

I’m a story teller too. So I invite you to join me on this journey, in all your human glory, be you ready or not, certain of your path ahead or hopelessly lost. At least we have each other.

CV

Sarazen AnYin

Currently lives and works in Oak Ridge TN

Solo Shows
2022 May-June, Tomato Head, Knoxville
2021 Aug-Sept Lox Salon, Knoxville
2021 June, Coffee and Chocolate, Knoxville
2021 April, Awaken Coffee, Knoxville
2021 Feb, South Knoxville Library

Group Exhibitions
2024 Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville
2023 Alliance Members Show, The Emporium, Knoxville
2023 Rarity Bay Exhibition
2022 – 2023 Mayor’s Office Exhibit, Knoxville
2021 – 2022 Nov-Jan, Oak Ridge Library
2021 – 2022 Mayor’s Office Exhibit, Knoxville
2021 Group Exhibition, The Emporium, Knoxville
2021 Bailey Opportunity Grant show, The Emporium, Knoxville
2021 Project Cosplay Past Winner’s Show, Animazement
2020 Alliance Members Show, The Emporium, Knoxville
2020 – 2021 Mayor’s Office Exhibit, Knoxville
2020 Group Exhibition, The Emporium, Knoxville
2020 Project Cosplay Past Winner’s Show, Animazement 
2018 Group Exhibition, The Foothills Craft Guild Show

Collections
Private Collections, Knoxville TN
Animazement, Raleigh NC
Private Collection, Lancaster PA
Private Collection, Phoenix AZ

Teaching
2023 Otakon, Expert Hours
2023 Instructor, KnoxMakers
2021 Session Instructor, PA Guild of Craftsmen
2021 Session Instructor, Smokey Mountain Fiber Arts Festival
2020 Session instructor, Smokey Mountain Fiber Arts Festival
2019 Instructor, KnoxMakers

Awards
2023 Gaudy Gold Frame Contest, Broadway Studios 
2021 Bailey Opportunity Grant winner
2019 Hallway Costume Contest, Animazement
2019 Project Cosplay, Animazement

Education
Studied under: Tom Knisely, Dale Lyles, Sigrid Briansdotter, Kim Caulfield, Victoria Walker, Geri Forkner, Cathy Briscoe, Nancy Sheddon

Professional Organizations
Foothills Craft Guild, member
Tennesseee Valley Handspinners Guild, President & Vice President
PA Craft Guild, Former Member at Large
York Town Craft Guild, former member