The Dartmoor Artist

Sarah Smith — The Dartmoor Artist — has built one of Dartmoor's most joyful and distinctively local creative businesses from a remarkable starting point: a freak sneeze in 2016 that led to spinal surgery and a year's recovery on the living room floor. During that time, she discovered painting. What began as a therapeutic outlet became a flourishing art business, a book, and a spot on the UK's Top 100 Female Entrepreneur list. She lives and works on a family farmstead a few miles from Haytor, deep in the heart of Dartmoor National Park. The landscape is her constant muse. Daily walks across the moor, foraging in the hedgerows, watching the seasons shift across the valley — all feed directly into the work she produces in her studio, which sits in the converted eaves of the farm's old granary, powered by solar panels. The work itself is vivid, textured and full of warmth: acrylic paintings using thick paint and bold colour inspired by the colours of Dartmoor's heather, granite, bracken and sky; sustainable hand-painted homewares including mugs, plates and vases; botanical illustrations using foraged finds from the hedgerows; and a range of prints, cards and illustrated stationery. Sarah also writes and illustrates her own books — her illustrated Dartmoor farm life title is a favourite gift for locals and visitors alike. Everything is made by hand, sustainably. All materials are FSC certified, packaging is recycled and biodegradable, and the studio and farm manage waste through a reed bed filtration system. Dried flowers grown on the farm are incorporated into packaging throughout. Also runs @thewyldcollective (flowers) and @the.booknookdartmoor (artisan cabin).