Sarah Jane Lapp is an American artist. She also likes to make people laugh. Over the last twenty-five years she has made images for stage, page, screen, and bean, producing essay-films, hand-drawn animations, short plays, jigsaw puzzles, music videos, telematic productions, anti-fascist greeting cards, and photovoltaic solar installations.
Two very funny Minnesotans spawned SJL and sent her to earn a B.A in Playwriting at Brown University before she moved even farther east as Fulbright Scholar at Filmova a Televizni Fakulta Academie Muzickych Umeni (FAMU) in Prague. She apprenticed at Studio Bratri v Triku and completed her MFA from the Department of Filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After a brief stint in NYC typing for R.O. Blechman and Wall Street tycoons alike, Ms. Lapp spent the next eight years in Seattle, vending her drawings at Pike Place Market, contributing editorial cartoons to the Hearst daily, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (RIP!), and producing animations, primarily for social justice and arts-dedicated entities. These animations, including her collaborations “Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper” and “Chronicles of a Professional Eulogist” with contrabassist/composer Mark Dresser, earned SJ internationally peculiar museum and festival exhibitions, an almost-Genius Award, and numerous stalkers. Lured back East for teaching appointments at Wellesley and Harvard, Sarah Jane dropped anchor in Seekonk, MA with her partner, the musician Skyjelly. Living among turkeys, deer, and other people’s dogs Sarah Jane uses comedy and compassion to generate free and off-grid renewable energy.
