Sara D. Simonson

Sara D. Simonson is a ceramic and metals artist whose creative life began after a long and accomplished academic career. After completing twenty-six years of teaching in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Western Illinois University—where she served as both a literacy professor and department chair—she was named Professor Emeritus in 2016. Retirement opened space for a long-held but unrealized curiosity, and ceramics quickly became a central focus of her life. What began as exploration soon grew into a dedicated studio practice rooted in curiosity, persistence, and experimentation.

Simonson’s background as a reader, writer, and educator profoundly shapes her approach to art. As a child, she was an avid reader and writer, drawn to the imaginative worlds literature could create. This passion led her to become a reading teacher and later a literacy professor, where she worked with undergraduate and graduate students, conducted statewide professional development, designed curriculum through grants, and presented at national and international conferences. Her career centered on helping others unlock struggle and discover joy through learning, a sensibility that carries directly into her artistic practice.

Although she enjoyed art in elementary and junior high school—most memorably painting a large-scale mural of the United States across two basketball courts—her formal art education ended in eighth grade. As a high school student, she was guided into “college-bound” coursework, leaving no room for studio art. For decades, visual art remained something she admired rather than practiced. Travel offered a partial outlet; gallery visits and ceramic objects collected along the way quietly accumulated until retirement made space for action.

Simonson enrolled in a beginning ceramics course at Western Illinois University, the same institution where she had taught for decades. The experience was initially daunting. As the only nontraditional student among undergraduate art majors, she struggled with unfamiliar terminology, technical processes, and even the mechanics of combination locks. Early attempts felt clumsy and discouraging, but persistence prevailed. By mid-semester, ceramics had taken hold, and by winter break her dining room table was filled with handmade pieces destined for family gifts. She was fully committed.

Under the guidance of ceramic artist Ian Shelly, Simonson completed every ceramics course available at WIU. As Professor Emeritus, she continues to have access to studio space and both electric and gas kilns. She later expanded her practice into metals, studying jewelry-making and small-scale sculpture in sterling silver, brass, and copper under the direction of Kat Myers, Chair of the Department of Art and Design. Her studio practice now includes wheel throwing, hand-building, sculptural ceramics, and metalwork.

Simonson’s ceramic work is playful, whimsical, and form-driven rather than functional. Working primarily in earthenware and stoneware, she is drawn to sculptural possibility and surface interaction. One of her most significant bodies of work centers on tessellations and ceramic “piecework.” In this series, more than 1,034 individually formed clay components were created using a limited set of molds—pentagons and triangles—mounted onto wooden pentagon bases. What began as a pattern reminiscent of quilt squares evolved into floral imagery and eventually into complex three-dimensional compositions.

The process is both methodical and obsessive. Clay is rammed into molds, refined by hand, sanded, fired, and finished through layers of stains, slips, underglazes, glazes, and even glass beading techniques that remove layers of surface to reveal unexpected color and texture beneath. While the use of molds introduces repetition, Simonson’s interest lies in how variation emerges through arrangement, color, and surface treatment. Each work becomes distinct despite shared geometry, a balance between control and discovery that continues to fuel her imagination.

Her exhibition history has grown rapidly since 2018. Simonson has shown work in group and small-group exhibitions across Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, and West Virginia, with both national and international juried acceptance. Notable recognitions include Best of Show at the 2025 Honeywell Annual Fine Art National Juried Exhibition in Indiana, the Allen & Carrie Clark Award II at the Arts North International 30th Juried Exhibition in Minnesota, and the Award of Excellence at the Color of Warmth National Juried Exhibition in Missouri. In 2023, her fifty-two-piece sculptural work Magnus Eruptus received the Rob Reed Memorial Sculpture Award in Galex 56, and eleven tessellation-based works were featured in a two-month exhibition at the Quad Cities International Airport. She has also sold work through galleries in Colorado and Illinois.

Simonson continues to invest deeply in professional growth, attending workshops across the Midwest and traveling to the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conferences in Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Ohio. These experiences, along with journals, exhibitions, and constant dialogue with younger artists, reinforce her identity as a lifelong learner.

She lives in Macomb, Illinois, and works primarily at her kitchen counter or in her garage, with institutional kiln access through WIU. Recently, she and her partner completed a long-planned backyard ceramics and metals studio, providing her with a dedicated space to create, experiment, and reflect.

Underlying Simonson’s practice is an ongoing negotiation with self-doubt. Entering the arts later in life placed her in the unfamiliar position of struggle, a sharp contrast to her decades of academic confidence. Applying to juried exhibitions became a way to test herself anonymously, letting the work speak before self-judgment intervened. Each acceptance reinforced a growing belief in her artistic voice. Moments such as seeing her work displayed publicly among peers, or being invited into collaborative exhibitions, have marked pivotal affirmations.

Her first solo exhibition, Rough Around the Edges, is scheduled for April 2026. The invitation emerged unexpectedly after a juror encountered the breadth of her tessellation work and recognized its potential as a standalone body of work. The opportunity represents not only professional recognition, but a personal milestone.

Simonson’s creative life is now defined by imagination, experimentation, and persistence. After a career spent empowering others through literacy, she has entered a second chapter centered on making, questioning, and discovery. Ceramics and metals offer her a space to struggle productively, to learn slowly, and to build meaning piece by piece.