Meet Sarah Drury | Artist, Designer and Mom

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah Drury and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
It’s funny as I really don’t think about the risk, I have always done things that others may see as “flying by the seat of my pants” and yes, when I do stop to think about it, it does become a little scary! Maybe if I thought about the risk before I started, I would not start?

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have always worked in creative fields, I started working in a hair salon at the age of 13, washing hair and sweeping floors and scrubbing, so much scrubbing… I was scouted by a modeling agency at 16 which was cut short by emergency surgery at 18 which left a large scar. When I moved to the US, I started working in the movie industry, learning all aspects of movie making, I didn’t have the means to go to school, but I dreamed of becoming a Director. My journey as an attractive woman in Hollywood was not as easy as it would seem, I was pigeonholed and my aspirations were not taken seriously, but I wrote a wonderful short that gained the attention of an executive at Mandalay Pictures, who agreed to pay for and produce it as my debut Directing job. However, I regretfully ended the dream after our first table reading. I was directing some awesome actors, only to have painful feelings of unworthiness stir, and this, coupled with the lack of personal support, made me realize that I didn’t have the strength to overcome the imbedded programing of my childhood…
I married a man who reminded me that I was never going to be good enough, and had Children instead. I just wasn’t strong enough at that time to embrace my own talent, even though I had wanted to, the chains I was bound with were just too strong.
So, I channeled my creativity into painting and poetry and I found that a piece of art that I created sparked a new dream, one I was finally strong enough to see to fruition. I divorced, healed and became fearless, I created a website where I could sell prints of my art on cushions and unique things, (https://www.sarahsarthouse.com) I also travelled back to Los Angeles to learn, about the fashion manufacturing business and started a clothing line I called SAGJOL, a word that I created by taking two letters from mine and my children’s names. I had created this word to sign all my art, but one day it appeared to me as an acronym for, “Sewing Awareness Globally Justifying Our Love” so I trademarked it and started SAGJOL Denim. It was a slow process as I was bootstrapping as well as learning, unfortunately Covid came along and SAGJOL became a casualty.
I spent some time licking my wounds, broke and defeated, I just knew I couldn’t give up. Then one day, 1UBU popped into my head, and I had an amazing vision of a brand that would embrace all souls, a brand that would unite and educate, and suddenly, a poem came into my head and within a few hours, I had written a poem that would explain perfectly my idea for 1UBU.
Broke, yet fired up, I gathered a few of my sons college friends and I produced and directed this amazing video that showcases my poem and idea for 1UBU, watch here:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2Fgn_bQtk
This was the start of 1UBU. I have been bootstrapping it ever since, I am currently looking for investors, which also isn’t easy, and has also been a learning curve, I do everything myself, from the website, ideas, designs and pitch/Branding decks, Im not a control freak, just a single mom, bootstrapping her dreams, with a vision to help change a world which is designed to keep us all separated. https://www.1ubu.com because, we are all multifaceted, but there is only one you…1UBU

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love when people visit, of course, the High Museum, art galleries and these cute Georgia small towns. I love downtown Senoia, Roswell Canton Street and Serenbe, just love Serenbe. I hike a lot, so I love all the trails, and walking by the Chattahoochee River, and my favorite is boating on Lake Lanier at sunset, it is so peaceful during the week, you can rent a boat and just loose yourself in one of the coves and watch the sunset, Bliss. I also love the shopping and music in the summer at Avalon in Alpharetta, Downtown Alpharetta has some cool restaurant’s and places to sit and chat.

For my local favorite restaurants I’d say…H&W Steakhouse for a great Steak, Peachtree Corners, Im also a Sushi lover and I can practically walk to Sushi Mito and the other day I found this cool little Persian restaurant called Dyar Persian Grill, their food was delicious, they are off Holcolmb Bridge Road in Roswell, just 5 minutes up the road from me.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My shoutout is to Jesus…I realize that this sounds so cliche, and everyones journey with any religious figure is a personal and very private one. But the reality is, Jesus was who I had been unconsciously calling upon since I was a child. Living within a family plagued with generational toxicity, and I say that lightly, and, without judgement because, most people do…I found myself being alone a lot of the time. Because of this I was able to embrace a kind of creativity that I probably wouldn’t have delved into if I had had more support, or dare I say, more activities to distract myself with. My parents were not religious and only went to church when there was a Christening or Wedding to attend, but my Primary/Junior school was attached to the village church and I loved being in there and just staring at the stained glass window where Jesus hung, literally. I was so drawn to this man, the pain in his eyes, and the constant wonder of what he could have done to have been punished so horribly…I grew up and my yearning faded when I started to take control over my own life, however, my life choices were marred by the generational toxicity that my parents had instilled and I found myself married to some resemblance of that, and extremely miserable. I had moved to the South where going to church was encouraged, so, I started once again to learn about Jesus, his journey, teachings and his sacrifice. Eventually, I gained the strength to change my situation and when I did, all those years as a child, tapping into a source of subconscious creativity, I used to escape the darkness, came back to me. The flow of creativity that I had been suppressing as an adult, even though I had been working in creative fields, suddenly started to flow again. I hadn’t really felt connected to a creative source as an adult, until I was able to recognize and change and I owe all of that to the stories of Jesus, meditating on his word and learning to forgive. Jesus’s stories really opened me up to embracing the creativity that I am now channeling in more positive ways to hopefully bring some awareness and light into other peoples lives.

Website: https://1ubu.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sagjol

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2Fgn_bQtk

Other: https://www.sarahsarthouse.com