Sally and Peter Saul inside their shared Germantown, New York, studio. Photo by ARTnews.
"I've been doing vultures because I thought the times called for some vultures," Sally Saul said of this recent sculpture. Photo by ARTnews.
Sally's sculptures Effigy with Feathers, 1999 and Effigy with Skirt, 1998, both made with ceramic glaze. Photo by ARTnews.
Graduation, 1997, one from a bust series that also includes Rachel Carson, Angela Davis, and Eisenhower, all of which are hollow. "I just build them going up," Sally said. Photo by ARTnews.
Growl, 2010. To achieve the smooth cream-like opaque quality on the owl in this piece, Sally used a glaze called majolica. "It's been around for centuries," she said. Photo by ARTnews.
By Katherine McMahon
Late last month, the husband-and-wife artists Peter and Sally Saul were busy at work in their shared studio building in upstate New York. Sally was preparing for a retrospective of her inimitable figurative ceramics to open May 10 at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, and Peter was occupied with preparations for show of his irreverent paintings at Nanzuka Gallery in Tokyo in June.
The Sauls usually start their day by drinking coffee and reading the New York Times together before heading to their two-story studio—Sally on the first floor, Peter on the second—around 12 noon. Peter often listens to classical music or country while painting, and Sally sometimes lends half an ear to public radio.
They don’t communicate too often while working, but Sally said, “Peter is always good about coming down if I want him to look at something. It’s an easy communication—neither of us mind being interrupted from time to time.” Typically their work day ends around 7 p.m. “If we go too much longer we interfere with dinner,” Peter said.
For “Habitat,” ARTnews took a look around their shared space over the course of a day.
