Marlborough ceramic artist, Sara Scott was born Sara Bridger in the UK in 1955. Sara completed a 3 year BA Hons Degree in Ceramics at Central School of Art and Design, London, and after a few years running a pottery studio then teaching, she worked as PA to a Design Director in a firm of architects. In 1991 she moved from London to Suffolk and began gilding picture frames and wall furniture in a company set up by her husband. After busy years gilding and the arrival of two daughters, the family had the opportunity to immigrate to New Zealand where Sara could work with clay again.

Sara has lived with her family on a lifestyle block at Essons Valley on the edge of Picton for the last decade, working in a purpose-built studio and gallery. She is very involved with Marlborough and Nelson pottery groups and has been a mentor for the Otago Polytechnic Diploma of Ceramic Art (Distance Learning) course. Her work explores many techniques and styles, however a strong and consistent theme has been the love of drawing as a form of decoration; scraffito, the inlaying of lines, and scraping away of layers of slips. Portraits, life-drawing and textile designs are predominant subjects in her work.

Sara exhibited with fellow ceramic artists, Janet Green and Fran Maguire in an exhibition entitled Three at the Millennium Public Art Gallery in 2012. Her work in this exhibition explored her past, her ancestors and her early life in the UK. Three represented a turning point for Sara. Her new work focuses strongly on her life in New Zealand. For almost three decades Sara worked and exhibited as Sara Schotanus and the Schotanus family changed their name to Scott in 2013. Last year, Sara was a finalist in New Zealand’s premier ceramic award, The Portage Ceramic Awards. Full Circle embraces her New Zealand experiences and is her first solo exhibition.