Sarah Miller Totten
Founder and Teaching Artist
Sarah Miller Totten is a visual artist and educator based in Northern Westchester County, New York. Founder of Fallsview Arts, her work and teaching explore the relationship between observation, movement, and mindful creative practice—drawing inspiration from the Hudson Valley landscape and over 15 years of professional instruction.
Artistic Practice
Sarah’s paintings explore rhythm, harmony, and emotional depth found in nature. Her work reflects an ongoing dialogue between structure and spontaneity, balancing careful observation with intuitive mark-making. Influenced by both classical and contemporary traditions, her process reveals a quiet tension between realism and imagination.
Each piece is an invitation to pause, observe, and reconnect with the natural world.
Her body of work includes plein air landscapes that capture light and atmosphere throughout the Hudson Valley, abstract botanicals that explore organic rhythm and pattern, portrait and figurative work focused on inner energy and expression, and mixed-media paintings that combine gesture, texture, and color harmony. Her artwork has been commissioned for public, private, and corporate collections, and she continues to exhibit locally and internationally.
Working in oil, acrylic, watercolor, and mixed media, Sarah’s fine art is deeply informed by years of Tai Chi Ch’uan and Chi Gong practice. This mindfulness shapes both her studio work and her approach to teaching, emphasizing presence, balance, and intentional movement in the creative process.
Teaching at Fallsview Arts
Sarah Miller Totten holds a Bachelor of Science in Visual Arts (BSVA) from SUNY New Paltz and brings more than 15 years of experience teaching drawing and painting throughout Westchester, Putnam, and the greater Hudson Valley.
In addition to her teaching and studio work, Sarah has spent years working directly with the public in marketing and outreach roles. This experience has shaped a clear, approachable teaching style—one that values communication, attentiveness, and meeting students where they are in the learning process.
Prior to founding Fallsview Arts, Sarah served for eleven years as Director of an established respected art center and gallery in Katonah, New York, and spent six years teaching drawing and painting within a prominent community art studio in the Hudson Valley. Her teaching experience also includes leading plein air instruction at the Seven Bridges Foundation, a renowned private landscape and sculpture collection in Greenwich, CT.
Over the course of more than a decade, Sarah also taught privately from her home studio in Carmel, New York, working closely with individual students and small groups. During this time, she led painting sessions and special art events throughout Northern Westchester, Putnam County, and the greater Hudson Valley, developing a flexible, student-centered approach rooted in real-world studio practice. These layered experiences inform her teaching today, grounding instruction in both artistic integrity and real-world understanding.
Areas of Instruction
Sarah teaches a wide range of disciplines, including:
Oil & acrylic painting
Watercolor
Portrait & figure drawing
Pastel
Dry drawing media
Abstraction & mixed media
Building Creative Community
Through Fallsview Arts, Sarah fosters a creative community grounded in learning, collaboration, and artistic growth. Her goal is to help students strengthen technique while discovering a deeper connection to their own creative voice.