Episode 96- Creative Thinking with Sabrina Fadial

Office Hours with John Gardner

Artist Sabrina Fadial is known for making the impermanent permanent and the minute monumental. She forges iron into delicate organic forms that are larger than life. The strength of the metal becomes malleable in her hands, yielding graceful passages of iron that unfurl in space. Fadial asks us to consider the minute facets of our lives that tend to be taken for granted. Reflecting on this moment of existence that is often overshadowed by the systems in which we function. She challenges societal expectations through which we define ourselves. Fadial’s artwork takes on a purpose beyond beauty that is startling to see. Her work suggests a moment caught in time; a motion gracefully suspended in space.

In 1989 Fadial earned her BFA in Textiles from Rhode Island School of Design. She moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina to be a designer at Milliken & Company where she received two patentes for her work. After Milliken in 1994 she began teaching 9th through 12th grade art at Charlotte Country Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Skills learned in 1997 and 1998 at Penland Craft School and Haystack Mountain Craft School transformed the scope and scale of her art. During this time Fadial also ran the Blooming Arts Festival in Monroe, NC. In 2001 she earned her MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Norwich University (now VCFA). This led to a position as Visiting Artist at Wingate University. In 2002 Fadial moved to Oakland California and began teaching at DIablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA, the Art Institute of CA in San Francisco, and the Crucible in Oakland, CA. Fadial was also a docent at the DI Rosa Preserve in Napa. During this time she continued her relationship with VCFA as Exhibition Coordinator. Residencies in 2006 (Venice Italy) and 2009 (Vermont Studio Center) were expansive and transformative. In 2010 Fadial moved her art practice to VT to become the Assistant Director of Visual Art at VCFA. A few years later she was promoted to Director of Alumni Relations. Fadial has an active studio practice, exhibiting her work around the country. Sabrina is currently the Executive Director of the TW Wood Gallery: A Museum of American Art, Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture + Art at Norwich University and Rosie’s Girls welding instructor for middle school girls.