Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
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40 ORNAMENT 38.1.2015 paying attention to function will result in efficient, useful design. In 2011 the couple bought five acres of woodland on Whidbey Island and a year later they started building a cabin that they designed as they built it. They felled logs from their property to make the building, and learned that if they stripped off the bark at a certain time in the spring the trees would become slightly slick, making it easier to slide the logs down a slope on their property. Their young friends from Seattle have often come up for long weekends of communal barn raising. Slowly the cabin is taking shape. She and Poechlauer, who works in research and development at a local laser manufacturer, intend to build every bit of the cabin, which has so far meant building their own wood-burning stove, among other hands-on projects. "You take things for granted when you go into a house that someone else built and everything is already working. But I know now exactly how the doors work in our cabin, exactly how the wood stove works. I like that." They have mapped out a large garden and plan to have chickens and other animals that will provide food. When the cabin is finished—the couple regards it as a practice homebuilding project—they intend to start on another building that will become their real house. Their back-to-the-land lifestyle was inspired by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. After reading the book they decided to become more knowledgeable about what they eat, and why. "We started having wild dreams of farming and growing all our own food. So we decided to leave the city and intern on a small organic farm on Whidbey Island in spring 2010. It would become a life changing experience," Owens says. Afterward they scrimped and saved for a down payment, found a lender willing to take a chance on a young couple, and bought their land. Owens says "the property is a blank canvas for a lifetime of creation." In-between time spent clearing land, building a cabin, working on an organic farm, and making jewelry, Owens for a few years worked part time for Seattle jewelry artist Nancy Worden. Worden has a production line of jewelry and regularly hires assistants. "I knew of Sara's work," says Worden. "I'd seen it at UW when she was a student and I was looking for someone with fabrication skills as well as some business experience. Sara grew up at craft fairs, and her background was exactly what I was looking for." Worden says she was quickly impressed not only by Owens's metalsmithing, but by her focused approach to making art and making a living at it. "This is a tough career. A lot of young people develop skills but they are naive when it comes to how to make a career in art. But Sara has the toughness ADAPTATION #3 BROOCH of sterling silver, wool, formed, fabricated, needle felted, 10.2 centimeters, 2014.