Pigments of Imagination

Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris (1949-2019) was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her family moved to the U.S. when she was a child, where she started studying with Abe Weiner, a well known American painter, when she was 10 years old. She received a degree in fine arts/illustration at Syracuse University New York, and a BFA Graphic design/ Calligraphy at Carnegie-Mellon University PA, where she studied with master calligrapher Arnold Bank and became his assistant. She taught calligraphy, art and design at CMU and the Ivy School of Professional Art & Crafts, lectured, exhibited, did commissions and appeared in numerous articles in various calligraphy journals. In 1977 she moved to Scotland, to the Findhorn Foundation, where she worked in the design department, designing and illustrating a whole range of publications. She also ran an art gallery there for several years and gave art workshops regularly. In 1984 she moved with her Dutch husband to the Netherlands, where she continued teaching courses in art and calligraphy, working in graphic design and calligraphy, exhibiting her art work, writing articles for various magazines, and illustrating books. Her work was used by several of the big design firms in the North of Holland. She also started to decorate period instruments for various harpsichord builders. In the mid-nineties she started to get more interested in the social side of art and creativity and joined HBG, an organization of artists that developed and executed celebratory art and creativity projects in hospitals, inspired by Patch Adams, the American clown/doctor. She was active for 15 years as a creativity trainer and an art/healthcare worker - an artist who uses her creative skills within a health-care setting to support patients and to help staff develop creative approaches to their work. She also worked as a creative consultant in a home for people with dementia for several years, which resulted in her first book, 100 Ideas for a Creative Approach to Activities in Dementia Care, which was selected by the British library association for their recommended reading list, and translated into German and Welsh. Both her second book, A Generous Spirit: Exploring New Directions for the Arts, and her third book, Pigments of Imagination, were published posthumously in 2020.