Second Nature is an exhibit by Sarah Patterson featuring her journaling, handwriting, and drawing practice over a 100-day period.

I get ideas for my drawings on my daily walks. I coax cows to the edges of fields. I look at the weeds. It causes me to look closely for patterns and textures and the way I feel about the landscape around me. I incorporate handwriting in the drawings as a journaling practice. You can read the writing or not. It serves as part of the texture. The writing and drawing create a record of a time. It is observational. The writing creates a texture on the page and the drawing helps contain the words.

In addition to the exhibit, Patterson created a journaling zine and a series of journaling prompts, motivations, and exercises to help others establish a drawing or writing practice.

Sarah Patterson is a graphic designer and maker who lives in rural central Pennsylvania. She received undergraduate degrees in elementary education from the University of Maine and in graphic design from Pennsylvania College of Technology. She received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Sarah spent her formative years in Rockaway, Queens; Brooklyn; Australia; and all around the state of Maine before settling in central Pennsylvania. Sarah’s work involves themes of the natural world, mother/daughterhood, archiving, memory, and handwriting. She likes the routine of 100-day projects. Working in the face of not knowing the ultimate outcome is the uncomfortable sweet spot Sarah often finds herself. What does it mean? Where are we going and what is the point? The answers to these questions inevitably reveal themselves. Trusting the process guides her practice. Her favorite mediums include: collage, drawing, and myriad analog methods of mark making.

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