By Amy Campion
Sometimes the best thing an artist can do is get out of her own way.
For Mornington Peninsula artist Sally-Ann Porter, saying yes to an idea, following it to see where it leads and resisting the urge to overthink the outcome has become part of a creative life that is gathering serious momentum.
In July, Sally-Ann’s extraordinary wearable artwork A Flow of Memory won the Elements of Nature category at the Australian Wearable Art Festival on the Sunshine Coast, a national and increasingly international event that brings together fashion, sculpture, performance and art.
The piece began, as Sally-Ann’s work often does, with an idea she simply wanted to make – in this case, a cloud headpiece. From there came rain, weather, movement, water and even mist, the work growing piece by piece until it became something far bigger than its original starting point.
It was Sally-Ann’s second time exhibiting at the festival and, knowing a little more about what to expect, she was able to relax into the experience this year. Around her was the kind of support every artist deserves: her family and friends helping backstage, encouraging, carrying, fixing, and most importantly cheering. A model brought the work to life on the runway, while Sally-Ann completed the make-up herself.
There is a wonderful amount of skill hidden inside the apparent whimsy of wearable art. These works must function as sculpture and clothing at once. They need to move, balance, survive being worn and still communicate an artistic idea. Sally-Ann works across materials and techniques, allowing the concept to dictate what she needs to learn next.
That willingness to learn, and to begin before she necessarily knows exactly how something will end, seems central to her practice.
Like many women, Sally-Ann’s creative life has had chapters. Art moved to the background for a time while she concentrated on motherhood and raising her children. Coming back to it wasn’t a dramatic reinvention so much as allowing an important part of herself room to expand again. And expand it has.
Her studio life now bubbles with ideas, half-made and remade objects, experiments, and the question of what might happen if she tries something she hasn’t tried before. There is hard work behind it, considerable amounts of it, but also obvious joy.
Perhaps that is what makes Sally-Ann’s story so captivating. Creativity doesn’t always arrive as a grand calling with a carefully plotted career path. Sometimes it returns on its own terms, then asks for more room. Sometimes opportunity appears because you said yes before imposter syndrome had time to answer for you.
Winning at the Australian Wearable Art Festival is a significant marker in Sally-Ann’s emerging career, but she doesn’t seem particularly interested in standing still beside it – there are already more ideas waiting.
And knowing Sally-Ann, probably several of them at once.
Discover more on Instagram @sallyannporterart and Facebook @sallyann.nugentporter
