Sandra Menefee Taylor is a Minnesota artist who pushes the boundaries of the role of the artist and art making: building bridges between the audience and the artwork, what writer Suzi Gablik calls "connective esthetics."
She was a member of the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM) -- one of the first women's gallery collectives in the United States -- during its formative years in the 1970s and '80s. Since then, her work is part of the growing "art in the public interest."
Many of her projects invite the audience to contribute their own memory, experience, and reflection, which she incorporates in sculptural installations that connect the audience back to themselves and their own authentic wisdom.
Winter/Spring 2009: developing and presenting creative activities programming for seniors with dementia through Wilder Foundation, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Spring 2007: installed "The Connected Heart" at the nursing school at Northern Technical College in Bemidji, Minnesota.
Sandra Menefee Taylor has worked since 1989 with photographer Linda Gammell on a series of projects loosely called "The Farmer's Daughter." Taylor and Gammell are concerned with the invisibility--and stereotypes--of rural women, and they have conducted numerous workshops throughout the Midwest to investigate women's role in the social, spiritual, and political movements of sustainability and food. Some of their projects are featured on this website; more information is available on "In Her Own Image."