by Stacia Friedman

For an artist with a loyal following of collectors nationwide, Sara Steele, 61, keeps a low profile. Living in the Mt. Airy home originally bought by her grandparents in 1935, Steele turns irises that grow in her garden and autumn leaves that flutter by her window into breath-taking watercolors. Some are as small as library cards, and others are of monumental proportion.

“That’s the largest I’ve ever done,” Steele said pointing to nine-foot wide painting above her living room fireplace. Entitled “Natural Bridges/Terrible Knowledge,” the painting was inspired by Steele’s visit to Arches National Park in southern Utah.

“I had hiked quite a distance and was alone facing these gigantic natural sandstone arches when the sky suddenly darkened. It was a snow squall,” said Steele, who is self-taught and did not go to art school. Rather than panic, Steel filed the image away mentally and later used her sketches to recreate the drama of the menacing skies, which in her painting take on a lush, organic life of their own. Steele had turned indigo paint into a force of nature. Integrated into the piece are two texts, one written by a friend of the artist. The other includes Chinese ideograms and their definitions, one of Steele’s passionate interests.

“I don’t always incorporate text, only when it tells a particular story that connects with a painting,” she said. For instance, her painting of Dixon Farm includes Chinese idiomatic expressions and a Native American “katchina” figure.

Steele’s love of watercolors started early and has never wavered. “I started with I was 10 but didn’t take it seriously until 10th grade when my art teacher Mrs. Bloch at Girl’s High pushed me. We had to keep a sketchbook and turn it in for a grade. Mrs. Bloch gave everyone who made the effort a B, but she gave me a D-. When I asked her why, she told me, ‘You can do so much better than that!’ She was right. I could. And I did.” Although she sometimes works in pastels, it is watercolor that claims Steele’s interest and gives voice to her creativity.

For those who only know Steel’s work from her popular annual calendar, “Sara Steele Originals,” or from her website, visiting her home gallery is an eye-opener. Paintings which appear merely “colorful” online radiate an almost electric intensity in person. It is also difficult to appreciate the vast scope and range of her work without seeing it in person.

Resting on two easels is a four-by-five-foot print, “Ruby Beach,” from an original watercolor of the same name. The sun setting over the Pacific Ocean in an amethyst sky appears to be virtually ablaze. “The woman who bought the painting for her home commissioned me to make a print for her office so she would have the ‘energy’ in both places,” said Steele. Where are such monumental fine art prints made? Right here. “I use Profiles in Chestnut Hill for all my prints,” said Steele. “Jeannine has an absolutely amazing color sense.”

Fans of “Woman in Gold,” the film about the work of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt who used 24-karat gold in this portraits of Viennese aristocrats, will find a kindred spirit in Steele’s “Death Dance,” a painting of dying autumn leaves in shades of red and yellow interspersed with glints of gold leaf. However, not all of her subject matter comes from the garden or landscape. In one corner, stands a small painting which from a distance appears to be an intricate abstract design or perhaps a Rorschach test. “It’s a view of the inside of a human skull,” said Steele, who is fascinated by medicine.

Of the many shows in which Steele has participated, there is one she hopes to bring to Philadelphia. “Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate” was at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena Montana in 2008. Organized by the Montana Human Rights Network, it asked Steele and 60 other artists from across the nation to transform 4,000 books of white supremacist hate literature into art. The books, demonizing Jews, blacks and other minorities, had come from the World Church of the Creator, one of the most active and violent of white supremacist groups during the 1990s.

Nationally renowned artist Sara Steele is seen in her Mt. Airy studio. (Photo by Stacia Friedman)

Steele was also one of six artists who chose to collaborate with school children for the exhibition. “I worked with students from the C.W. Henry School who created ‘A Thousand Cranes,’ turning pages of hate literature into hand-colored origami birds,” she said. As a lifelong social and political activist, Steele feels strongly that the exhibition has an important message for Philadelphians concerned about the ongoing racial and religious polarization sweeping the nation.

Steele is the winner of numerous awards including the Peace and Freedom Award from Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Distinguished Alumna Award granted by the Citizens' Committee on Public Education in Philadelphia and the Brandt F. Steele Aesthetic Award for Promotion of Peace and Prevention of Violence awarded by the Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

What’s Steele most excited about? What she’s working on next, of course. “I was just named Artist-in-Residence at ARTZ Philadelphia, an organization that links artists and cultural institutions with people living with dementia. I’m developing a new project for them.”

While Steele’s original paintings are highly prized, she understands that they are not within everyone’s budget. “That is why I make prints and do my annual calendar,” she said. “I’ve been making them for 37 years, and the 2017 edition just came out.”

Steele is also a gardener whose hands-on work with plants fuels her work in flower painting. In her book “In Bloom,” Steele writes that gardening "helps me stay connected to beauty and simplicity.”

Sara Steele’s calendars are available at Weavers Way, Big Blue Marble and Delphine Gallery, as well as at www.SaraSteele.com. Her original art is on display at Valley Green Bank branches in Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill. She welcomes visitors to her studio by appointment only.