The School Librarian (Detail), 2004 C-print

An artist and educator currently living in Chicago, Sa Schloff has a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a M.F.A. in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She taught in the B.F.A. program at the Maine College of Art for many years and currently teaches color photography at Columbia College, Chicago.

Sa has worked on a number of projects photographing people and interior spaces. As an artist, she is primarily interested in how we are surrounded by vestiges of the past even as we rush into the future. As a whole, her work explores the themes of time, history and architecture. Sa's fascinated by spaces that feel frozen in time and often makes images that feel like they could have been made in the past.

Schloff has exhibited her work around the country in solo and groups shows at The Arts Club of Washington, DC; Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston; Gallery at Green Street, Boston; Houston Center at Green Street, Boston; Houston Center for Photography; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Minnesota Photographic Arts Gallery, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Smith College Art Museum, Northampton, MA.; Worcester Art Museum, MA., among others. Sa has received a Chicago Arts Assistance Grant, LEF Foundation Artist's Grant and St. Botolph Foundation Grant for her work. Sa has photographs in a number of private collections as well as in the permanent collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Portland Museum of Art; Simmons College, Boston; and the Bates College Museum, Maine.

Most recently, Sa's work was published in The New Yorker (April 2, 2007) with an image from Blue Sky Project and Harper's (September 2007). For more information about the artist, please visit: saschloff.com - Sa Schloff.

"Blue Sky is truly a unique program because it is both a serious artist's residency and a program that works with the young people and the community. I thought the group of Blue Sky artist participants was both extremely high quality and diverse-it felt great to have colleagues again after a period of relative artistic isolation.

"I really enjoyed watching how each of the artists created different projects. While based on individual studio practice, our processes were cracked open to youth participant involvement, sped up-the final exhibit certainly did not look like it work that was created in 8 weeks-and more unpredictable. Giving up the almost total control one has over one's own artwork was both difficult and invigorating. Also, I loved exploring McHenry County: Our group traveled all over the county to small towns and exurbia and we got to see and photograph in some incredible locations.

"Finally, I think my Blue Sky work moved me more rapidly on a trajectory (inserting people into my interiors and thinking more about American painting, like those of Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, etc.) that I was already about to embark on."