Sarah Gail Luther

Meet Sarah, one of the artists who will engage the public along E. Greenfield Avenue for WaterMarks.

A sense of urban exploration and discovery characterizes Sarah's approach to public art projects. Her practice considers the pattern of human movement in our city, drawing our attention to boundaries that divide us and unappreciated spaces whose value can be revealed if we slow down enough to see it. Though she delights in the role of an artist to share such precious moments, she is very conscious of her white privilege in framing those experiences.

"I have this ability to be a part of the city and to go to any neighborhood. What do I do with that ability that helps more people have that sense of empowerment or that sense of ownership over public places and understanding where they live and exploring and observing and being a part of the city--trying to connect with the city that they live in?"

Born in Wauwatosa, Sarah went to college in Kansas City, then came back to Milwaukee to rent in the Riverwest and Concordia neighborhoods. She's now put down roots in Milwaukee's Silver City neighborhood, which she discovered in 2010 through the Layton Boulevard West Neighbors association. In 2011 Sarah did a summer pop-up community space on National Avenue. Through that program, she met a lot of people and fell in love with the neighborhood where she was lucky enough to purchase her first house. This summer, Sarah is also Silver City's artist-in-residence through Artists Working in Education. Because of COVID-19, she's pivoted to creating an online newsletter, making art kits, and providing suggestions for what people can do at home, as well as walking prompts or maps to promote a neighborly sense of both wonder and wander.

Sarah's past work used the lens of art in tourism to invite conversations and reflection on weightier topics afflicting our city like systemic racism, poverty, and educational disparity. In Milwaukee: Spaces to Places, Sarah created origami-folded hand-illustrated tourist maps of empty lots at 20th and Hampton and distributed them with flowers from a wheeled cart outside "touristy areas" like the Milwaukee Public Market in the Third Ward. The project invited reflection on the assumptions underlying people's "geographical comfort zones."

Considering the project along E. Greenfield Avenue, Sarah is excited about the opportunity to unite themes of human movement, development, and nature.

"My practice always thinks about the patterns of movement in our city. And so one of the things that I notice in that area that I connect to other work that I've done before is how the highway divides that space. Both highways, both 94 South and 94 East/West, they both run along the same paths as the river, so they create these sections between where the water is and where the highway is. And you can see in Milwaukee that those highways box people in but they also push people out of certain areas... One of the things that really excites me and draws me in about that area is understanding the relationship of the highway to the neighborhoods and where people live, and also understanding the relationship of development to how people have access to that water."

Did you know? Sarah uses her middle name Gail to honor her aunt.