For over 35 years, Sally, born Sarah Elizabeth McEachen, has been involved in artistic ventures- whether it is commercial design or very personal painting.
Sally acquired her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Drake University. The period included one year of study in Florence, Italy where she won the Katherine B. Child award, a competition for a book plate design. The winning design was used in the American Studies Library at the University of Florence.(1) She continuing on to an associated degree in Graphic Design from Studio Academy of Art & Design in Omaha, NE.
Her career was started in Omaha at Les Hayes Studios, a prestigious mid-western design studio. ConAgra Foods was one Les Hayes Studio's notable clients. Sally worked on ConAgra's Annual Report, creating the paper sculptures used throughout. (2)
In the early 80's Sally married and moved to a small town, Riverton, in the middle of beautiful Wyoming. She returned to her artistic roots, developing a technique for creating batik leather, plaster masques and also painting in watercolors .
She was President of the Riverton Artist Guild in the '80's. During her term the Annual Quickdraw was established, a fund raising event still very popular today. (3) She was recipient of the Riverton Arts in Action Outstanding Artist of the Year award.
In 1988 she won Best of Show at the Wyoming Artist Association Show for a painting of a golden eagle.(4) The next year she held her first one woman show of masques and watercolors at the Art West Gallery sponsored by the Jackson Hole Arts Center.(5) One of her masques was featured and auctioned at the Jackson Fall Arts Festival.(6) The same year, she was selected as one of 10 Wyoming women to exhibit at the Wyoming State Museum "Emerging Wyoming Women Artists" show.
In the early 90's Sally returned to graphic design. She joinined Loren Jost as a creative director for Big Bend Creative Services. A major accounts was the Wind River Visitors Council. Loren and Sally created and developed the brand Wind River Country, still in use today. Sally designed Wind River Country's first logo. (7)
Her community spirit continued and she joined a group of concerned citizens to fundraise and build a skate/bmx park in the Riverton City Park. Sally was in charge of the advertising .(8)
She also began oil painting having never used oils before. Using an old technique, she prepared canvases with thick white lead paint and let them dry for over a year. Sally decided to let the canvases tell their own stories and using the texture as a guide and following her intuition painted a series of visionary paintings.(9) At the beginning of the new century, one of Sally's visionary paintings won an honorable mention in “The Spiritual Art V International Juried Art Exhibition”.(10)
Around the same time she also enrolled at the local college for a web design certification. Immediately following her education, Sally was hired as a web designer by a leading internet service provider in the region. In 2009 Sally opened her own design firm, Otherhand Design. In 2011 Sally's artwork was accepted at Global Arts in Lander, Wyoming and is currently on display. (11, 12 & 13)
