The world speaks to us through everything she holds, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in screams. I see the way the grass turns brown under the blazing Texas sun, her blades curling inward. I watch how the San Antonio River breathes differently in drought and flood, her moods teaching me about survival and rage. But she also speaks through the old stories, the folk and fairy tales that have warned us for centuries: don't enter the forest at night, don't marry the man who hides his true nature from you.

In this body of work, I've woven sculpture, painting, drawing, and puppetry into a fable of my own making. This is the beginning of Chapter Two: Lion Laughs Last.

Celtic and Norse folklore tell of selkies—captured feminine creatures who slip between seal and human form by shedding or wearing their seal skins. These stories echo with a familiar violence: worldwide, nearly 1 in 3, or 30%, of women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence. If these statistics reflected mental and verbal abuse, the numbers would be far higher. They steal our wildness and call it love. In Chapter One, The Woman Under the Water, I transformed this long-standing wound into a new story. A bull—brutal and possessive—steals a snake's skin and hides it from her. But she reclaims what was always hers and flees, finding her freedom in the current.

In Chapter Two, the snake swims upstream and finds a woman crying under a tree…This woman is trapped, caught in the web of an abusive man's making, afraid for herself and her children. The snake sees herself in the crying woman. She whispers to the woman that she is not alone, that escape is possible. The snake's bite awakens what was always sleeping the woman; She becomes a mighty cat, fierce enough to protect what she loves, powerful enough to break free.

As you move through this exhibition, you journey from Chapter One into the beginnings of Chapter Two, following the current of these interconnected stories. In both, women find themselves held by Mother Nature, guided by her, set free by remembering their own strength. Through my work, I seek to remind everyone, especially women, that we are not separate from the natural world's power and wisdom—we are part of her endless capacity for resilience, transformation, and righteous fury.

Bio

Sarah Fox’s multi-media narratives and characters are created from embodied female experience. Stories of life, loss, sex and love are told through archetypical hybrid creatures. The resulting drawings, cyanotypes, and video works suggest a fairytale with an undercurrent of dark symbolism.

Her work has been shown throughout Texas, as well as in the Kinsey Institute (Bloomington, Indiana), Field Projects Gallery (New York, New York), Espacio Dörffi (Lanzarote, Canary Islands), Casa Lu (Mexico City), and Darmstädter Sezession, (Darmstadt, Germany). She has participated in artist residencies throughout the US including The Vermont Studio Center, The Women’s Studio Workshop, Wassiac Projects, and residencies abroad at Casa Lu in Mexico City, Residencia Nautilus in the Canary Islands, Atelierhaus Hilmsen in Hilmsen, Germany and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. She received an Individual Artist Grant from the City of San Antonio in 2021.

Fox lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. She received a BA from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas where she studied studio art and feminist theory. She received an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In addition to teaching at Texas A&M University, she runs an art and ecology summer camp for young artists in conjunction with the San Antonio River Foundation.

The Woman Under the Water & The Lion Laughs Last

By Sarah Fox

In the water lives a woman of scales and mist. Her skin is deep green, and her long hair, tangled and wild, trails behind her like a veil of weeds.

Once each month, as the full moon rises, she feels a pull towards land. The moon speaks to creatures of the water, calling them to dance in her light. She crawls out from beneath, snakes slither at her feet as she climbs. She carefully peels off her scaly skin and hides it. The skin holds the magic of the water, allowing her into its shadowy realm.

Nearby, there lived a solitary fisherman. He casts his nets into murky depths, forever staring into the water. One night, through the trees, he glimpsed a silvery figure moving. It was the woman dancing beneath the full moon. He longed for the freedom in her wild movement.

She filled his dreams. He began to make a net, attaching sharp teeth to the ends. His desire and obsession grew as he tied knots until one night it was finished. He left to seek out the wild woman.

The fisherman spotted her hidden scales. Sensing its power, he stole the skin and hid it away. He walked towards the Woman.

“What is it you want from me, fisherman?” The Woman hissed.

“I have burned your scale skin”, he said. “Without it, you cannot return to your home. Wear this dress of woven silver and live with me. I will provide for you, and you will be my wife.”

She agreed and put the silvery net around her body.

She was comfortable in his home, but always haunted by the call of the water. Her once-vibrant skin had dulled, her hair grew brittle, and the reflection she saw in the mirror had become a stranger’s face.

One evening, as the fisherman was packing his boat, the Woman noticed a glint of green from the bottom of his tackle box. It was her snakeskin, glistening and wet after all these years.

That night, as the fisherman slept, she crept to the dock. With trembling hands, she began to pull the silvery toothed net from her body. She dug, beneath the hooks, all the way to the bottom of the box where her scales lay shining. The scales began to sing as she touched them. Her hair turned deep green, and the shine came back into her eyes and her skin. She slid the glistening scales onto her body.

She hesitated, taking a final backwards glance at the small home where the fisherman slept. Then she dove into the water, breathing in the wetness. A familiar coolness rushed over her. The snakes came to greet her.

“We’ve missed you. Where have you been?” they hissed.

“I’ve been away so long, I had forgotten who I was. Let’s swim far away from this dry place.”

The Woman swam and swam. Pushing through the current, she relished in the water against her scales. The freedom of her body.

At a bend in the river, she heard crying and peered her head out of the water. A maiden sat under a tree, licking tears from her bruised hand.

The Woman slithered over to her and gently hissed, “Why are you crying?”

“I am alone,” she said, “The Blue Troll has tricked me. He offered me a place to live with my children and food to fill their empty bellies. But he is a tyrant, we live in fear of his rage, his tantrums, and his fists. Today, I tried to run away with my children, but he saw us. He pushed me to the floor and grabbed my babies. He locked them in a room and turned his anger on me. I had to run away. But he has my children. He wears the key around his neck and is so much stronger than me. I don’t know what to do.”

The Woman said, “My sister, you are alone no longer. I will help you all escape, but you must be brave, and you must be ready to fight. We will face him together.”

They held each other’s hands and walked back to the home of the Blue Troll.

“I’ve…I’ve come for my children! Give them to me now.” Shouted the maiden at the door, this Woman behind her. She shook with fear, and her voice caught in her throat.

“Ha ha ha! What is this pitiful mewing I hear at my door? Your children are mine now, and you are pathetic and weak. Ha ha ha! Perhaps I’ll let you return to my home if you beg for forgiveness. Who are you to think you can ever run away from me?!”

The maiden began to cry and panic. His laughing, angry figure towering over her.

The Woman rose to her full height and hissed. “This is your only warning, Troll. Give us the children, or you will regret it!”

“Ha! I am not afraid of a puny little creature like you. Stay out of our business; it is no concern of yours. I will take care of her, then move on to you.”

The Woman turned to the maiden and whispered, “It is time, my dear, are you ready to be brave? Are you ready to fight? This will hurt a bit.”

Through streaming tears, shaking hands, and wobbly legs, the woman said, “I am”.

The Woman wrapped her long body around the maiden and bit her deeply in the arm, filling her veins with venom.

As the venom moved through her body, the maiden grew. Her limbs stretching and thickening. Bright pink fur sprouted from muscled shoulders and legs. Her nails thickened into dark, sharp claws, and her teeth curled over her lips into fangs.

She began to laugh. She laughed and laughed until she fell to the floor. Steadiness filled her body as it grew. Her long, fuzzy ears twitched with confidence and mischief. Still laughing, she pulled herself up from the ground and stood.

“You stupid troll”, she growled, stepping towards him. “You are nothing but empty, bubbling anger and slow, lazy fists.” She laughed and walked closer, eye to eye with him, her clawed fist wrapping around the key. “I will be taking my children,” she said as she ripped the key off his neck.

The Lioness ran to the room with her children in it and unlocked the door. Three cubs ran out of the room and into her arms. “Momma, momma, we’re all fuzzy and sharp! You’re so big, your teeth are so sharp!”

“Yes indeed,” she laughed, “We are lions and now we are free.”

As they turned to leave, the Blue Troll stood blocking their path. “You can’t leave! You are MINE!”

The Lioness pushed her children behind her and walked towards the Troll. “We do not belong to you; we belong to NO ONE!” she growled, slashing his face with her sharp claws and pushing him to the ground.

The woman stood in the doorway. “My dears, now it is time to RUN!”

And so they ran! The Woman back to her cool, wet river. And the Lioness ran to the forest with her children behind her, laughing all the way.