Kayla Krasnick ’28
Episcopal Academy’s art gallery is awash in deep blues this month with cyanotype artist Sarah Boure Rafferty’s collection Learning to Listen. This show features both her cyanotype and collage work. Cyanotypes are a process of creating pictures without a camera, which involves a chemical solution and UV light exposure. By placing objects over the paper and blocking the UV, it creates beautiful, inverted images. Learning to Listen includes works of varying sizes, ranging from 3 by 5 feet to 3.5 by 5.5 inches. With an overarching theme of nature, it imposes a sense of calm and serenity on viewers, as well as demonstrating the wide range of mediums and processes that make up art itself.
“The process really starts with being outside and gathering natural material. A big part of the making of my work is the before, the mental space of walking and looking, finding things that would make great cyanotypes,” Rafferty explains when asked about her artistic process, and how Learning to Listen was born. The show, inspired by observing both the outdoors and her own thoughts, taught her the importance of listening, as the name suggests.
The cyanotypes are primarily focused on nature, whereas the collages incorporate another aspect, her family. Her father, an architect, helped her to create the collages on display. Rafferty remarks, “You can see, there’s architectural drawings in with those collages, and those were his. I’m using his work and my work together.” Coming from artistic parents, she considers herself to have always been an artist. “My parents are both artists; my dad’s an architect, my mom’s a musician. It’s in the family.” As a high school student, she attended Westtown, and fell in love with darkroom photography. She continued her journey in college and graduate school, where she studied alternative process photography and book arts for her MFA.
Photo courtesy of Carter Yearley ’25
When asked to give a piece of advice to student artists, Rafferty reflects, “Just keep making your work. Showing up to our work, day in and day out, you will only get better, and your own goal and vision will get stronger.” She believes it is entirely possible to live off of your art. “I am a full time artist making a full time income, and I had never thought that was possible. I feel like it’s a little bit of my mission to tell or just help students see it is a viable option.”
Ellen Erikson, photography teacher, shows students in photography classes how to make cyanotypes. She greatly appreciates the opportunity for her students to see the show. “I’m just very excited for them to see something that they are learning in class being utilized professionally,” Erikson comments.
There are two things that she thinks are particularly special about the show. “For one, the scale. When we do cyanotypes in class, we normally do them about 8×10, but I think a lot of hers are 16×20, or even larger.” Erikson feels that the scale is very impressive, as it causes mistakes to be much more common. “Working at that scale, it brings in a lot more difficulties, a lot more room for failure, mistakes, mishaps. And so that is just really special to have something that is so beautiful, so well done at such a large scale.”
Photo courtesy of Lucia Forte ’26
Erikson particularly admires another detail of Rafferty’s collection: the collages. “She has a number of more layered collages, cyanotype work, kind of multimedia work, and I think that is also very unique and special, and just a kind of different way of using the chemistry of creating multimedia art with a deeper conceptual meaning where the cyanotypes are like one of the building blockers or puzzle pieces.”
Art students at EA also have plenty to say about the gallery. When inquired about Rafferty’s methods, Violet Stanek ’28 comments, “I’ve heard about cyanotypes before but I’ve never seen a whole collection about them. I think it’s a very unique thing to do.” Aaron Zhu ’25 stated, “I’ve only been [to the gallery show] a few times, but every single time I’m just amazed. It feels like the plants used to make the cyanotypes are actually there and the composition was truly spectacular.” Stanek had the same thought. “I liked the large one with the assortment of leaves and flowers. It brought me a sense of peace and it was pleasing to the eye.” Erikson agreed with students, but had a different take. “I would say my one is that really big one in there. And not just because of its size- it’s not just one leaf, but it’s multiple different botanical specimens in there, and it’s gorgeous.” The largest piece, Field of Dreams, gave viewers a peaceful feeling, as well as looking technically interesting. Being the outline of a wildflower field, there were only two colors. However, the shapes gave the illusion of a filled in, realistic picture.
Learning to Listen is a wonderful journey of nature and calm reflection, and EA is so lucky to have its artist, Sarah Bourne Rafferty, on campus and visiting photography classes for these next couple of weeks.