Womb with a View:
Selected Works by Sara Thomas
Opens Friday, August 1, 6-9 pm; Part of Downtown Ventura’s
Free First Fridays

What a title for Sara Thomas’ journey--so far--as a woman, mother, wife and daughter. These soft drawings in soft pastels, colored pencils and acrylic ink, carry profound messages. Her first exhibit in Ventura, "Womb with a View" includes a retrospective as well as new works, reflecting her life's journey and the archetypes of birth, death and rebirth. She returns to the womb to heal and rise again. Her recurring theme of the Madonna countered with playful abstracts reflect her spiritual journey.

An Army brat born in 1951, Sara Kendrick Thomas lived her early years in Trieste, Italy and Berlin, Germany, plus on the East Coast of the U.S. Her family settled in Southern California, eventually ending up in Ventura, where she attended Buena High. Sara came late to art after surviving viral encephalitis at age 35. The close brush with death forced her to drop her pre-med studies but serendipitously landed her in the hands of Bay Area portrait artist Jackie Kirk, with whom she studied.

After Sara's husband, Mickey Thomas, of Jefferson Starship fame (yes, she is that 'Sara') survived a brutal beating in late 1989, the couple, along with their young daughter Taylor, moved to Lake Tahoe to heal from the trauma. Here she continued her studies under master sculptor, David Foster, and painter, Phyllis Shafer.

After her divorce, art took a back seat. Sara left her beloved lake, returning to Ventura to be near her family. She began to work again after being inspired by a children's book gifted to her by Museum of Ventura County’s curator Anna Bermúdez.