Ironically, it was a lack of art supplies that led Monique Sarfity to the style of art that currently distinguishes her work. She earned a degree in painting from Parsons The New School for Design. “I did figurative painting,” she says. “Most of my paintings were female nudes—figurative work.”
When she started teaching art in middle school and advanced high-school art in Wyckoff in Bergen County, her métier began to change.
“When teaching, I started playing around with reusable materials, inexpensive ways to use recyclable and reusable materials,” she says. “I got donations from parents and was working with glass, stone, and tile. It was something I was interested in in my own art.”
In 2009, she won a grant to go to Ravenna in Italy and study mosaics. “I learned about ancient techniques, and now that’s all I do. I focus on glass and found objects.”
