Sonia Lynn SADLER

SADLER, Sonia Lynn

Sonia Lynn Sadler passed peacefully at her home in West New York, NJ. on September 15, 2013. She was born in Ft. Riley, Kansas May 25, 1958. Sonia attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fashion design from Parsons School of Design in New York. She was an artist and fashion designer. She designed for Albert Nipon, Anne Klein, Jones of New York and Dana Kay. Many of her designs appeared in many major fashion publications including Vogue and Women's Wear Daily.

Sonia is known in the Austin area through her participation in the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar from 2007 to 2010. She was one of 2 to 3 African Americans participating at the time. Sonia's vibrant colorful scratchboards, acrylics, heritage pieces and abstracts, which were often centered on family and community traditions, are in the collections of many in the areas.

In 2011 Sonia was among ten distinguished illustrators selected by Scholastic Magazine to illustrate a page in the book America the Beautiful: Together We Stand by Katharine Bates. Publishers Weekly review stated: "Sonia Lynn Sadler, one of several artists that go the mural route, contributes the book's most striking and least literal image." Sonia illustrated three other books: The Goat Goes to Town by Phyllis Gershator, Ma Dear's Old Green House by Denise Lewis Patrick and Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson. She won four awards for her illustration of Seeds of Change: The Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award from the American Library Association, 2011; The Green Earth Award from the Newton Morassco Foundation, 2011; The Best Children's Book of the Year Award from Access Africa presented at the Smithsonian, 2011; and The Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Children's Literature by the Sigurd Environmental Institute of Wisconsin, 2011.

Sonia, a non-smoker, succumbed to lung cancer. She is survived by her parents, Wellington and Inez Sadler of Bowie, Md; brother Christopher of Severna Park, Md; special friend/aunt Barbara Williams Huggins of Austin; cousins Adrienne Luckey and Bertha Sadler Means of Austin and many other dear relatives and friends. Donations can be made in Sonia's memory to the Weill Cornell Medical College c/o Lung Cancer Research, Hematology/Oncology, 1302 York Ave Rm741, New York, NY 10021.