Sarah Grass and Courtney Puckett, featured artists on Testudo, delve into the intricacies of balancing their creative practices with the demands of daily life. The pair met for a video call in early summer as part of our DIALOGUES series which connects Testudo artists in conversation for an exclusive look into their creative practices. From Sarah’s studio in Ridgewood, Queens, to Courtney’s in Upstate New York, both artists share insights on maintaining a sustainable live/work rhythm, the interplay between their studio work and other commitments, and the influence of rituals and external practices on their art. Together, they reflect on the impact of teaching, the evolution of their art-making processes, and the broader social and civic responsibilities they embrace as artists. Their conversation offers a thought-provoking exploration of the dynamic relationship between art, life, and the pursuit of meaning.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Courtney Puckett: All right, so the first question: Describe your live/work balance, rhythms, and patterns. What kind of structure helps you sustain? How do you protect your practice?

Sarah Grass: I think my practice protects me more than I protect it in a sense. It’s pretty resilient in its flexibility. The physical act of drawing is rarely my top priority, but it’s entangled with everything else I do: teaching, research, spending time with family and friends, strength training. Drawing is the way I narrate my consciousness, and not just physically drawing, but also drawing connections and storylines. There is always a slow hum of storytelling in my mind. A sort of studio “voicemail” that collects ideas and messages while I’m otherwise engaged. The most potent of these become my drawings.

“Work” as in “studio work”, is a process I use to stay coherent. When I need it, I prioritize it. Sometimes this relates to a project or deadline, and other times it’s about mental or emotional processing. In times of grief, for example, drawing takes priority. It gets me back into coherence, and after, I like to share what I’ve processed through a physically drawn result or the courses I teach.

CP: That's interesting—the flexibility you allow for in your “studio work”. I definitely have a more rigid, compartmentalized approach. I often feel like a guard over time in my space. Boundaries are important. That's what is fascinating about this question. There's no one way to do it. We have determined that art making is essential to our lives, but we're constantly drawn in other directions, and navigating the balance. I love that the practice protects you. That resonates. Studio time for me is definitely a way of processing what is happening in my life personally, in my community, globally, etc.

You've started an art school (The Pack). That's amazing. I see it as a social practice, do you?

SG: I like thinking of The Pack as a social practice! It began in a moment when the solitude of drawing compounded with the Covid lockdown. I wanted to be of use to others and had a bit of a spiritual crisis around the value of art in the context of great social upheaval.

This was also the time I started dating my partner, an FDNY firefighter, and our contrasting social roles further called into question my civic responsibility as an artist. What do we bring to a crisis? I came up with this: in crisis, a firefighter manages their emotions and an artist (at least the type of artist I am) expresses them. I’ve learned a lot about processing emotion by entangling with a firefighter. Processing to me is a center point between managing and expressing, and has become a cornerstone in my practice of both drawing and teaching. I think the honesty and vulnerability that artists share is one of our greatest civic/social offerings.

CP: I'm gonna have to interrupt us for a second because my work is being installed at this very moment down at South Street Seaport [The Golden Thread at BravinLee] and the curator is texting me pictures and questions.
I’m back. So The Pack is one of the ways that you support yourself? I'm always curious about how artists navigate either selling their work versus earning a living through another kind of job. And how these decisions affect motivations in the studio. I’ve supported myself financially over the years in many different ways, but find teaching the most synergistic. It is a way of meeting the ‘civic responsibility’ that I too feel.

I've known that I wanted to be an artist since I was a kid. But it's been a challenge to figure out how to support myself. Witnessing many artist friends over the years feast-or-famine on sales of their work fortified my search for another way to earn money. Early on, I worked in different aspects of the New York art world from Artforum magazine to galleries to artist assistant jobs. When I started teaching in my early 30’s I found that synergy. That is, until a decade of adjuncting at multiple schools left me very strung out. I did some intensive inner spiritual work, reassessed many things, got clear about what I needed, and made a declaration that I was no longer going to adjunct, whatever the sacrifices. Right at that moment, I was offered a full-time tenure-track teaching position. This was only two years ago, but it has been very transformative and much healthier for my nervous system. I needed stability and direction. Now I have a predictable rhythm and that is working really well for me. I can create a structure–literally an Excel spreadsheet with color blocks of time when I am focused on my teaching job and when I'm in the studio. I am experiencing a better quality of attention and energy.

SG: Wow, you’re making a great case for structure! And against adjunct work haha. I don’t know if I could make a spreadsheet but I do have designated studio time on my calendar. If only I could adhere to it more! You’re right, boundaries are important. I’m currently opening a new studio for The Pack so the majority of my time is funneled into that right now. But as I say that, I realize that’s studio work too! It’s all connected.

I haven’t had a steady work schedule since I worked 9-5 in the offices at SVA. I did that for about six years, during which I got my MFA, and then transitioned to teaching which is much more “synergistic” as you said. I swore off admin work, until I swore on it again to run my own business. There’s no escaping it!

CP: Are you currently teaching at SVA too? What do you teach?

SG: Yeah, I still teach at SVA. I’ve been connected to the school in some capacity since enrolling as an undergrad myself in 2004. I’ve taught drawing, sculpture, and painting, I worked as a course advisor in the Division of Continuing Education and I got my MFA there in 2016. Adjuncting ain’t easy but I owe a lot to that school. I’m probably a lifer.

I’m most comfortable diversifying my roles. If I have two jobs—or three— when one caves, another will catch me. Unfortunately, my experience in adjunct work has shown that I need that.

CP: I feel like it's a daily exercise of balance. I don't work in the studio every day during the Fall and Spring semesters, but I hold time each week in the studio. In between semesters I get into a much more intensive flow and can be in the studio everyday.

SG: Yeah, it is hard. How do you protect your time? For me it's about living a life of meaning. That’s the practice, so wherever I make meaning I consider studio-relevant. Sometimes protecting my studio means not being in there. Sometimes protecting a life of meaning is to connect with my teenaged undergraduate students. Sometimes it's like “I have to start my own school because I don't really like the limits of adjunct teaching”. Sometimes it’s taking a walk outside or laughing with friends. Other times, yes, I’m like, “I’m turning off my phone. I'm not looking at my emails and I'm just gonna sit and draw for the next four hours, in spite of my to-do list.” If I didn’t do that there would be no drawing.

I’m inspired by how boundaried you are. You have me reflecting on the moments I’ve been more structured in my studio and they were arguably better for my nervous system. Rhythm is good for the soul and habit formation is something I study and teach, though it's not always possible for me to implement. Some seasons are just about flux and expansion: system reboots. I think I’m in one of those right now.

CP: I could also use a little bit more of your time fluidity, a ‘life of meaning’. I tend to commodify and box time. I’m always involved in making new work and keeping the practice going. But, at times, it means not doing other things like going for a walk or meeting up with a friend, as much as I’d like to also do those things more often.

SG: Yeah, I love the Zen saying, “When tired, sleep; when hungry, eat.” When I'm hungry for the studio, I'll be in there. If I'm not that hungry, I'll feed other areas that need attention. I sort of categorize my energy rather than designating blocks of time. I want to learn to listen to my energy better, and decide, “today, I really just need to do X. X is where my energy is.” Of course sometimes we don’t get to choose so freely but I think that's okay too. Because we can fill up on desire. Sometimes I don't want to draw at all. I just don’t. But if I have stored up drawing energy in my back pocket, I’m ready to go when the available studio time arrives. If enough energy floods me at once, I cancel all cancelable plans without remorse and get to the studio. So, I don't know. There's no easy way to answer this question is there?

CP: Yes, listening to energy. The pandemic lockdown revealed to me a different pace that my mind, body, and spirit appreciated, in fact reveled in. It allowed me to reevaluate and trust my inner knowing about agreements, decisions, and what I needed in order to protect (and to borrow from you, be protected by) my studio practice.
Related to the first question: what practices or rituals outside the studio feed into your practice?

SG: I feel like everything I do holds some context for who I am and what I make, but particularly my interest in psychology, mysticism and power lifting hah! I initially started lifting because I wanted something that was totally different from the rest. Purely numbers. Completely uncreative, or at least less cerebral. I love expending physical force and energy, which you really don’t see in my delicate drawings. Lifting satisfies the masculine part of me that wants to feel like I’m making progress. It certainly isn’t always linear in process, but the goal to lift more weight is nice and simple. I think of my art career as a more diffuse goal, which I thought was just indicative of “how I was” until my instinct to start lifting showed me the benefit of commitment to a linear path, to knowing that I'm getting somewhere, doing something, getting stronger.

I’ve been lifting consistently for two years so it’s gotten somewhat serious. It’s medicine for my mind and interesting to witness a parallel practice to my career. In lifting and in art, you get incrementally stronger— or weaker!— and there’s a big estimation factor when it comes to ability. You have to know how much you're capable of lifting in the moment. It’s a reality check!

Now you! What are your outside the studio rituals?

CP: Totally. I was thinking about how important yoga is. It became especially clear for me in the pandemic when I was at home joining my local yoga studio on Zoom. Afterwards, I’d immediately go into the studio. The energy moving through me while practicing yoga went right into the making process. I think of my 3D forms as drawing in space and the different positions of the body; how lines move like energy through the body. Ideas are often generated while practicing yoga.

Interestingly, I had a similar impetus during the pandemic to initiate alternative, independent teaching opportunities outside of academia. I began a series of virtual ‘Drawing the Asanas’ workshops. I partnered with different yoga teacher friends. We joined our expertise (mine—figure drawing, theirs—yoga philosophy). Participants would learn about yoga theory, practice a few poses, and make a series of gesture drawings while observing the teacher's asana or positions on the screen. There is a connection between the embodied act of gesture drawing and the awareness of our physical bodies while practicing yoga that I wanted to bring forth and share.

Divination through Tarot is another ritual that has become important to the studio. I took a Vision Crafting workshop with Erin Mahollitz in the Spring of 2021 when I was reevaluating my career path. Part of that workshop involved reading tarot cards. I knew nothing but was immediately hooked. It took me a silly long time to find my way to this practice. I’ve since learned that my very Catholic grandma used to pull cards. There is mysticism in my bones and recognizing it felt like ‘coming home’.
The regular practice of pulling cards for myself has provided a kind of framework for how I move through life in relation to the emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and spiritual self. The many notebooks full of writing and sketching are now informing all of my new work.

SG: Tarot is such a special practice, isn’t it? Especially for visual people. I love your mind-body-mysticism connection and totally see how yoga feeds into your sculpture practice. The symbology as well: your sigil-like forms and archetypal titles. I’m now reframing your compartmentalized studio time as the creation of a ritual space. A sacred material performance, rather than a rigid production line— the way yoga sequences can be rigid and scripted but with the purpose of creating energetic flow.

You kind of become a sculpture in the shape of a yoga pose and through that act, internally understand structure and balance. And you also slow the brain down, bringing the body into stillness. Do you think that’s part of why ideas come to you in that practice—slowing of the mind

CP: I score really high on Openness, from the Big Five personality test. Openness is an individual's tendency to think in complex abstract ways and have highly networked brains; webs of many loosely associated concepts. People who score low in that category have brains where tasks and concepts are distinct or isolated. This surprised me since I think that I thrive in mental compartments. But it goes on to say that when high Openness minds are in a state of wakeful rest, or daydream state, they're more apt to make conceptual connections and associations. So I like that you point out about the generative yogic state. I'm just now realizing that this is what that is. It allows me to be a witness to whatever comes up.

SG: Yes. The slow, soft mind is where we can witness connections. I bet this is also why the stable tenure job is helping you too. Giving structure for you to flow within. I also score high on Openness. I think that’s probably an artist thing, don’t you?

CP: That would be an interesting thing to look at!

SG: I really love how you title your work as these sort of archetypes (similar to the Big Five or Meyers Briggs or Tarot etc.) For example: The Gardener and The Joiner. How do you describe the way you title and categorize your work? Where do titles come from?

CP: Around 2016, I liberated the sculptures from hanging or leaning on the wall. As free-standing, human-sized forms, they became more like surrogate bodies or ‘personages’ (to borrow from Louise Bourgeois’s titles of her totem-like sculptures, each with their own personality). I think of the armatures of found objects as skeletons and the wrapped surfaces of textiles as skin. I collect titles like I collect discarded materials. They are a starting place for choosing shapes and colors to work with. These titles suggest outward personas; social or occupational roles. Coming to the tarot in recent years has expanded my list and the newest sculptures are referring to major arcana archetypes. For example, The Lamplighter was inspired by The Hermit card. What about your journey as a young person to becoming a practicing artist? Were there risks along the way?

SG: The journey question. Okay.

I've always read the world in a particularly visual, symbolic way. I’m a dreamer (day and night) creating images in response to what I see as reality. I don’t actually see images like my drawings in my mind—that aesthetic is what happens when the images come out. My mind’s eye most nearly resembles surrealism or magic realism. Definitely a live action film with some cartoons. As a kid I would categorize people as either live-action or cartoons and I still can’t get to the bottom of what that was about. Some people felt real to me and others were harder to access, like caricatures. I became obsessed with film when I was in high school. I worked in a video store and devoured anything that dealt with abnormal psychology and social dysfunction. I was really into emotional taboos, people who were suffering internally—probably because I was. Emotions were more taboo to me than sex. I tried not to acknowledge them, but then learned that I could express myself in an encoded, symbolic way that wouldn’t stress others— or myself— out. If I channeled emotions well enough, it could even be celebrated!

CP: It was incredible to see all those pictures of your dog drawings when you were little from the Testudo Studio Spotlight video.

SG: Yea those were from high school. I barely drew at all in college.

I first went to a liberal arts school because I was non-committal to art as a career. I wanted to study psychology and animal behavior but I was so overwhelmed by my inner world at the time that I simply couldn’t ingest anything else. I needed to process. So I applied to SVA. It was the exact right place at the right time for me because I had all this emotional content that needed to get out. SVA is a more conceptual art school. I ditched drawing and got into sculpture, video, and performance, which were much faster and less self-conscious. It was a very experimental time, being exposed to so many different types of artists and ways of working, so I didn’t graduate with the strongest sense of my practice, but I felt expansive and hopeful.

Out of school was where things got tenuous, having studied something that not only doesn’t translate to income but also burns it. There weren’t many jobs that valued my skills. It took years of trial and error to find myself in a teaching position— finally a career where I don’t feel I’m pretending to be someone else for money. A few years ago I actually sat myself down and said, “Sarah, we’re done pretending to be someone else for money.” That was around the time I started The Pack.

Being an artist is a lot about self-trust. You have to just be like “yep, I’m doing this” and then fully commit. See the risks; leap anyway. I want to hear more about your path! What are the biggest risks you've taken as an artist and how did you build trust with yourself in order to take those risks?

CP: Embarking on the path of an artist is such a brave act! It takes a lot of courage, faith, and adaptability. I suppose sacrifice too, but honestly, whatever conventional lifestyle I’ve ‘sacrificed’, I don’t see it that way. I’ve made choices in support of my passion—who I married, where I live, who I surround myself with, what I direct my energy towards. I have no regrets. I went to MICA for a BFA in painting then the University of New Mexico for an MFA in Sculpture. I loved the magic of the desert and the interesting history of artists moving there. But once there I decided to leave after one year in the program and transfer to Hunter College in New York. That was in 2004.

SG: Same as me. We both converged in New York in 2004.

CP: Wow, amazing!

In the hardest moments of trying to make everything work in New York, post grad school, I thought about that decision a lot. What if I’d stayed? What would my life have been like? This past March I visited Albuquerque after 20 years and it was surreal seeing my old studio. Thinking back, I am amazed by my younger self making that decision. I trusted myself even though I didn’t really know what lay ahead.

SG: It’s so important to trust the gut, and to somehow know the difference between intuition and fear. I’ve heard fear creates confusion while intuition does not. Can you share some of the ways you’ve guided yourself through fear in your practice? Fear of the big unknowns that being an artist requires?

CP: What comes to mind is my determination to use fabric as a primary medium. Fiber is having a moment now, and my work has had a lot of visibility recently. But for most of my career, artwork using fibers was not widely shown or championed. I started using textiles during my undergraduate years (1998-2002) in the painting department as a rebellion against the hierarchy of painting and attraction we have to technical skill (I was a very technically skilled realist painter). Not long after, in graduate school at Hunter College (2004-2007) I was told my work was ‘too crafty’. I continued to receive messages in different ways from many people in the artworld that my use of fiber was preventing me from showing and selling more. One curator suggested I paint the sculptures instead. This was not that long ago, maybe 2017. I heard the messages, I processed the messages, but ultimately did not adhere to them, likely to the detriment of more visibility as a younger artist. Instead, I embraced messages that encouraged me to continue on my own path and to trust my intuition. I looked to generations of artists before me that did not adhere to trends.

SG: Hell yeah! It’s both so hard and so easy to remain on your own path. I relate to all of this so much and hope anyone who’s reading this far shares the inspiration you’re giving— just like the generations of artists you received it from. We truly don’t have to listen to every message, every thought, every feeling. There’s so much liberation in simply doing what feels good and letting the rest fall into alignment. Thanks so much for this lovely dialogue! It definitely felt good!

CP: Sarah, it has been so magical to connect through Testudo. See you soon, in the flesh I hope!