Being part of a whole community rather than just an art community has been an extremely valuable part of Concordia. The community is top notch. It's why I'm here.
“It sounds cheesy, but it feels like I’ve been doing art ever since I could pick up a pencil.” In a way, art has always been intertwined with Sarah Armbrust’s life. “My mom was a substitute art teacher when I was little and she would always be working on an easel and I would think, ‘that’s the coolest thing ever. It’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since.”
When Sarah began looking for schools to start her art career, Concordia was not on the top of her list. “When I was first looking at schools, I was really interested in a Pixar feeder College in Georgia. The opportunities would have been amazing, but the community was nearly nonexistent.” That wasn’t the case for Concordia. “When I visited Concordia, the professors almost immediately started making connections with me. Their intentionality was so evident. It was very clear that they wanted to work with students and guide them along a path.”
The community has been very important in broadening Sarah’s perspective of art. “When I was in high school, I never really was part of a community of artists, so I had a very narrow view of what art should be. As an artist, Concordia has helped me to learn to see things more objectively, but at the same time, allow perspective that is not my own to influence my own view of art. I’ve learned to be not dependent on, but welcoming of others’ opinions and guidance.”
While Sarah has learned to be open to change in her art, she wants to stay fixed in her faith. “The rest of my family is in churchwork, and throughout college, I’ve been wrestling with how to be a servant in such an egotistical profession. Art is such a tangible skill. I need to constantly remind myself that this is God’s skill that I’m borrowing.” For Sarah, Concordia has provided her a place for balancing her faith with her art. “Throughout my college career, I’ve been able to talk with my art professors about how our lives work with our faith in the secular world and how they clash and how they intertwine. That community, along with being surrounded by people with different interests and skills than me who encourage me in my faith, has been so important to me.”
With Sarah’s college career drawing to a close, she’s thinking about the future. “I’m planning on going into illustrating children’s books. Artists are such servants to children, and I’m so excited to be that for people in the future. It’s definitely not going to be easy. Eighty percent of the time in the illustration field, you get rejected. But I know I can only do so much and God will handle the rest.”