by David Iverson of the Lowell Sun | April 2005

Pottery Fires Lowell Native's World View

Since moving from Lowell to Maine a year ago, potter and photographer Sarah Sorenson Coppi has been exceptionally busy. She has traveled extensively, produced new pottery prodigiously, and just opened an art gallery and studio in Portland.

She's back in the area as part of a group show today from noon to 5 p.m. at the Little Red School House on Route 113 in Dunstable. Also featured are paintings by Elaine Donnelly and hand-detailed clothing by Alpha Coyote Castro.

Sorenson Coppi began her journey into the arts while dabbling as a metalsmith, but soon discovered that pottery was her true calling.

"I realized that the clay and I got along a lot better than me and metal," she says. This realization led to a fruiftul three-year apprenticeship with the Emerson Umbrella for the Arts in Concord.

When her mentor for the apprenticeship moved to Korea to further his own ceramics studies, Sorenson Coppi took over the Umbrella's entire clay program. She then went on to teach others the nuances of working in clay for more than 10 years.

Sorenson Coppi also traveled extensively to such exotic locales as Vietnam, Africa, Ukraine, India, Nepal, and Peru, where she witnessed deplorable living conditions. The cliché "starving artist" took on new meaning for her, as she witnessed the struggles artists face in poverty-stricken areas where creativity is not a generally accepted currency.

Rather than dampen her spirit, her observations abroad served as catalyst for her ambition to bring indigenous art to people at affordable prices. Sorenson Coppi had already wanted to open her own pottery studio but now had a broader vision.

That vision materialized when an affordable storefront became available in Portland. She opened Earth & Soul Studio, where she does more than offer pottery classes and showcase her own earthenware and ceramics. Sorenson Coppi will be using it as an advocacy and assistance facility.

"We'll be holding Spanish-language classes and workshops with traveling artists, and this season we'll be featuring art from Africa, both Senegal and Tha Gambia, as well as from Colombia and Guatemala. Next season, we will feature art from different countries, which will hopefully keep us traveling," she says.

"We are a fair-trade gallery so that we can help artists from all over the world, including the United States. Outreach is something we believe strongly in and we are priced affordably so that everyone can have something beautiful while the artists benefit, too."

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