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​Hello, and welcome to the debut of Valley Art Center’s Artist Stories Blog. The VAC has a long 50-year history of working with artists, and where we have built a wonderful community. This blog will tell you the stories of artists who have a connection with the center. You will learn about the artist’s background and art form, how they are involved with Valley Art Center, what and who inspires them, and their advice to offer new artists. We are doing this to bring awareness to artists and the different art forms they practice and to showcase the community we have built over our years.
The blogger who will be telling you these stories is Sarah Bullington, a student of Valley Art Center. Sarah is from Medina and comes to Kim Mettee’s adult jewelry open studio class every Thursday.
Sarah is completely blind, but that does not stop her from creating and loving art. She has loved creating ever since she was 

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a little child. Her Grandpa, who was a father figure to her, was very involved in her creative journey. He started her out by doing beadwork, and other arts and crafts. This instilled the love of creating in Sarah’s life and taught her important skills such as being patient and trying new things. As Sarah grew up, her love for making jewelry grew with her. When a bead store opened up in 2009,This gave Sarah the environment to learn about the different types of beading materials and grow her skill set by taking classes. As Sarah advanced as a jewelry maker, she ventured out to other bead stores in Cleveland Heights and Oberlin to inquire about higher-end beads take more classes.
Sarah became involved with Valley Art Center in 2019 when Robbie Grodin met Sarah at the Art Therapy Studio and saw her jewelry. Robbie recommended to Sarah to take Kim’s jewelry class, suggesting that it would highly benefit her and help her to grow and improve as an artist. Sarah reached out to Kim and they have built a wonderful relationship together.
Today, Sarah is an advocate for artists with disabilities. Sarah serves on the board of directors for Art Possible Ohio. She is working with art organizations like Valley Art Center to make their programming accessible. She believes in the importance of inclusion. Even though someone has a disability, that shouldn’t mean that art isn’t accessible to them. Sarah explains for herself, even though she can’t see with her eyes, she refers to her hands as her eyes, and her imagination her vision. Sarah is currently working on starting her business Busy Bee Artistry LLC. She is working on starting an Etsy shop to sell her handmade jewelry. Sarah has always wanted to help people in need. She can’t help in the “traditional way” due to the challenges she has, so she has decided to use the gifts that God has given her to help people by donating all profits from her jewelry to the Lutheran World Relief. ​