Sarah Williams Around Town

Driving down a suburban street might feel like a mundane act for many, but for Sarah Williams it can be an exhilarating exploration of her favorite subjects.

Particularly at night when her car’s headlights rake against trees and send shadows whipping across the fronts of homes set back within green yards and nestled within night’s embrace.

The artist, who’s based in Springfield, Missouri, ties much of her current work to time spent in the Dallas area, where she was pursuing a master’s degree from the University of North Texas. Living in a sprawling metropolis like Dallas made her miss the more rural lifestyle of Missouri. “I understand now that I was really homesick. So I began working with nostalgic imagery from my childhood in north Missouri. I realized how important those places had become to me,” Williams says. “I love this idea of little towns spread out with 30 miles of farmland between them. They really give you a sense of place and time, especially when you compare it to a place like Dallas, where there is so much prefabrication and a McDonald’s on every corner. You can get lost in that.”