Occupation Artist, Sculptor Name Sandra Priest | Notable work Victorii Rebuild Home town Fort Myers | |
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Other names San Priest
San the Artist Website Sandra Priest Sculptor Website
Sandra Priest Mural Website | ||
Project 911UP Sandra Priest memorials from the World Trade Center area slurry wall
Sandra Priest (also known as San or San the Artist) is a muralist and sculptor from Florida. She is internationally known for her wall and ceiling murals, most notably her concrete sculptures commemorating the September 11 attacks.
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Early life and career
Priest grew up in Gary, Indiana with her grandfather and father both concrete finishers and brick layers. At a young age, she would paint murals on her bedroom wall. At the age of twenty, she opened a wedding design store where she sewed wedding gowns based on photos provided to her from her customers. She later became a real estate broker in Indiana before moving to Florida at the age of forty to study art under Dr. Lilliana Dordevich.
Priest began her art career by painting portraits and holding an art show for breast cancer awareness. The show raised funds for the American Cancer Society in Naples, Florida. She continued her artistic career painting murals on ceilings and interior walls in various businesses and residences throughout the United States and Canada.
Works
Priest has created many notable works. After September 11, 2001, she was inspired to create sculptures while sitting in a traffic jam driving from Florida to Indiana, shortly after airplanes were grounded during the attack. It was her observation of roadside materials, street signs, license plates and concrete pipes, that inspired her to photograph reminders of 9/11. Her inspiration later transitioned into a concrete pipe sculpture showcased at the World of Concrete in 2007 as a prototype sculpture she created as the beginning of Project 11up. San wanted to place 11 memorial sculptures around the United States. She could not get the concrete pipe sculpture project off the ground until 2010 when she was commissioned to be the only artist to create concrete sculptures from several 4 ton pieces of parts of the slurry wall from Ground Zero that had been saved for Historical sculptures as recycled art of the greatest kind.
Victorii Rebuild, one of her most notable sculptures, is a four-ton sculpture carved from concrete belonging to the slurry wall (also known as The Bathtub) at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center. The wall sustained minor damage during the attacks on 9/11 and the piece used for the sculpture was removed from the slurry wall in order to make room for a new rail system for the area. She was commissioned to make a total of eleven sculptures from the slurry wall which are scheduled to be placed in various locations throughout the United States, a project titled Project 11UP. Another Project 11up sculpture entitled Socratic Way was placed at the Memorial Union Hall at Oregon State University in 2012.
One of Priest's most notable murals was painted on a 1,600 square foot ceiling in the New Hindu Temple of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers. The project took her approximately one year to complete.