Campus Directory

Pronouns she, her

Division Arts Division

Department/College/Unit Art Department

Title Assistant Teaching Professor, Print Media and Drawing

Affiliation Faculty

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Areas of Expertise Print Media

Web Site

Primary Office Location Elena Baskin Building G
104

Office Hours for Students/ Office Hours Winter 2025- Mondays 12-2pm or by appt.

Mail Stop Art Department

Biography, Education and Training

Sarah Sanford is an artist and art educator whose practice incorporates photography, printmaking, drawing and installation to create hidden worlds of biological landscapes and scientific abstractions. Capturing the physical nature of light is a dominant component to the imagery she creates. Drawn to its’ ethereal properties and transient nature, her work explores themes of time passage, impermanence and interconnectedness.

Trained as a printmaker, Sanford is a Teaching Professor of Print Media and Drawing in the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz. She holds a Masters in Fine Art in Printmaking from the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (2003) and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the joint program of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH (1996). Sanford is the currently the Director of ArtsBridge, an Arts Division program that awards undergraduate and graduate Arts majors scholarships to teach an arts discipline project in local schools.

Summary of Expertise

My area of expertise lies in traditional and contemporary print media processes including screenprinting, intaglio, monotype/monoprinting, digital techniques in addition to alternative photographic applications, and intuitive, experimental and mixed media drawing processes.

Research Interests

Sanford's work investigates the changing paradigm of the contemporary surface of the print in relationship to the lens and technology in the post-digital age. Her work often employs the halftone grid as tool to manipulate and break down photographic images serving as context for the captured fleeting fragments of visual information we encounter in our daily lives.

Teaching Interests

•  Traditional, digital and alternaitve print media processes
•  Topics exploring fragmentation, ephemera and time-based art
•  Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Art practices

Selected Exhibitions

2025       Light Gets In, 2-person exhbition with Ann Resnick. Cabrillo gallery, Aptos, CA.

2024      The Director’s Cut. Woolwich Contemporary Art Fair, online showcase.

 https://woolwichprintfair.com/directors-cut

            Five Points International Print Exhibition. Five Points Art Center, Torrington, CT. Juried by Donna Frustere.

2023      Ephemerality, Strata Gallery, Santa Fe, NM. Juried by Director of Strata Gallery, Jennifer Van.

             Between Us and Trees: Conversations in the Secret Language of Nature, Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, LA.

             Juried by John Greco. Awarded Honorable Mention.

2022      LAPS 22nd National Print Exhibition, curated by Kenturah Davis. Mixografia, Los Angeles, CA.

             Conversations with the Archive, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC. Juried show curated by Aline Smithson.

             The Capsule Print Portfolio, Southern Graphics Council International Conference, Madison, WI. 

2020      The Lightness of Being, The Old Wrigley Building, Santa Cruz, CA (solo)

2018      Printstallations, Invitational show featuring contemporary large-scale print works, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. San Jose,                   CA. 

2017      Lightfast, Steckline Gallery, Newman University, Wichita, KS (solo)

2014      Bridging Santa Cruz: Spanning 50 Years of Printmaking, Cabrillo Gallery, Aptos, CA

              Satellite Exhibition part of the SGC Conference, Bridges: Spanning Tradition, Innovation and Activism

2012      Earth•Science•Art: 16 Collaborative Explorations, R. Blitzer Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA

             Invitational show featuring collaborations between artists from California’s Central Coast with scientists from the U. S. Geological                       Survey’s Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. Exhibition travels to Reston, VA. (2013)

2007     Wrexham Print 2007 International, Wrexham Arts Centre & Memorial Gallery, Yale College. Wales, UK. Jury Selected. (UK Tour 2007-09)

2006     Still Light, Edinburgh Printmakers, Scotland. (solo)