Watercolor paintings and housewares by artist Sarah Rose Lyons aim to make art accessible
While walking around Artisphere in 2022, one of Sarah Rose Lyons’s five children asked why she wasn’t participating in the art festival.
The Greenville artist explained that the juried event was for artists who, she says, “paint constantly. I wasn’t doing that at the time.” Then, her 10-year-old posed a consequential follow-up question: “You always tell me to be brave. Why can’t you be brave?”
It was a motivating moment. The following year, Lyons applied to Artisphere, was accepted as an Emerging Festival Artist, and garnered numerous sales of her nature-inspired watercolor paintings.
The experience “was transformative because it showed me what was possible,” says Lyons, who now sells original pieces and fine art prints at art festivals nationwide. “As mothers, it’s often tempting not to take risks in chasing our career dreams, especially when our children are young. But Artisphere, and the resulting creative life I have built, allowed me to be fully present as a mother while fully engaging in my artistic work.”
The realistic paintings depict the natural world Lyons observes during regular walks through her husband’s garden beds or the woods surrounding their historic home, where butterflies flit on blossoms, bees buzz around blooms, birds take flight, and flowers burst forth amongst foliage. Her works on paper are meant to not only show ecosystems’ intricacy and interconnections but also be beautiful reminders “that nature is always giving us joy and moments of beauty,” she says.
Her belief in the power of beauty and her mission to make it accessible to everyone is rooted in her life’s pivotal points. When she lost her job as a first-year teacher in Dallas due to budget cuts, she took a position in a homeless shelter, helping children create therapeutic art. The role showed her “the power we have as humans to create. In the essence of creating, you have possibility, and in possibility, you have hope,” she says.
Sarah Rose Lyons finds Beauty in the Mundane
Her struggle to find beauty in the mundane ritual of washing dishes—“having five children, I do so many,” she says—made her realize that “it’s not only beautiful that I get to experience this life of nurturing my children, but I can also choose to invite beauty into harder, laborious moments,” she adds.
That spurred her to create Sarah Rose, her brand of sustainably made housewares sold online and to wholesale retailers. The line’s kitchen textiles and soon-to-be-released, limited-edition dishware line—a collaboration between Lyons and her childhood friend, ceramic artist Louisa Henry—feature repetitive flora-and-fauna patterns, often inspired by historic fabrics.
The brand intentionally focuses on slow living. “I used to hear ‘slow living’ and think it required moving to a farm and having chickens,” Lyons says. “But while the idea of letting go of modern life’s demands may sound appealing, that escapism mentality doesn’t help us slow down to be present with the life we actually have.”
“My brand allows the invitation of beauty into our daily life with products inspired by and good for nature,” she adds. “I want beauty not just to be accessible to everyone, but accessible to every part of life: in our lived spaces, in how we dine together and clean up after community gatherings, and [in our] family time.”
Continuing To Be Brave
Lyons will participate for the third time in Artisphere this year, as one of the juried festival’s 140 selected artists. From May 9 to 11, she and others will exhibit original artwork in various mediums along South Main Street. In addition to the music, culinary offerings, and art demos visitors can see this year, they can also participate in creating a collaborative mural with Mexico City-based artist and educator Paola Ibarra Llano. To learn more, visit artisphere.org.
To see more of Lyons’s artwork or order products from her housewares brand, Sarah Rose, visit sarahroselyons.com.
