This year‘s deserving Award recipient is Sarah Decker. Sarah is a senior pursuing a BA degree in studio arts. She works in many mediums, such as painting, weaving, and textiles. Her Appalachian roots influence the themes that she expresses. After graduation, she intends to pursue a career in the textiles design industry.
Sarah Decker
Sarah Decker was chosen by our very own Johanna Norry, who was her professor for the first 3 years that Sarah attended U.N.G. Below is Johanna’s description of Sarah, her work, and the reasons Sarah was nominated her for this Award.
One of the greatest joys about teaching is getting to witness, and be a part of, a student discovering their voice, their passion, and develop into an artist who expresses themselves with skill, creativity and authenticity. That describes my experience as Sarah Decker’s professor perfectly. Sarah was my student in my very first semester at the University of North Georgia in my 2-D Design and Color Theory class, and she worked as my studio assistant, helping organize the weaving studio and textiles classrooms. It was another year before she took Introduction to Textiles, and then Sarah was in my Textiles and Weaving classes every semester until I left UNG last Spring. During that time, I watched Sarah grow from a quiet and cautious student, to an expressive, risk-taking, and bold artist with a distinctive and clear point of view.
It was clear when Sarah first took weaving that she didn’t want to just learn to weave, she wanted to be good—really good—at it. There were more experienced weavers in the studio—students who also received this award in past years—and she pushed herself to weave at that level from day one. She was driven, ambitious, and usually wove two projects in the time that others wove one. It wasn’t long before her weaving was not only technically proficient, but also expressed the artistic voice that she was discovering in her other textile work as well.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Sarah found her people in the textiles and weaving community at UNG. For this reason, and because I know she has recently purchased a loom through the Guild so that she can continue weaving now that she will be graduating, I have no doubt that Sarah will be a life-long weaver and textile artist. This past Fall, at the urging of her new Textiles and Weaving professor, Jess Self, she had a solo exhibition of her weaving and textile work in UNG’s Hansford Gallery. I fully expect that she will continue to share and exhibit her work and I very much look forward to seeing what she does in the future. For these reasons, I am honored to nominate Sarah Decker for the Betty and Clay Smith Award. Her exceptional talent, dedication, and contributions to the UNG weaving community make her a very deserving candidate for this recognition.
Sarah Decker is a University of North Georgia senior pursuing a BA in studio art. She is from Tiger, Georgia, and the environment she grew up in influences her work. She practices many mediums such as painting, weaving, and textiles. All of her work however has a similar theme that represents her Appalachian roots. Her love for her heritage is the driving force behind her creations. Sarah learned how to weave at the University of North Georgia in the spring of 2023 under the guidance of the Guild’s own Johanna Norry. From then on, her love for weaving and learning has driven her to new heights. Within these classes, she explored the capacity of weaving, experimented with pattern alterations, and pushed the boundaries of her knowledge
