From the locus of Sandrow’s open air studio Shinnecock Hills, When Dreams Collide is an ongoing study investigating timely issues reflected in societal transformations including the status of women, the positioning of artists, and native peoples after the Algonquian ancestral lands of Shinnecock Nation were taken by the Town of Southampton in 1859 to Sandrow’s chance encounter with a white cockerel in the woods (2006) to present day.

Sandrow’s project frames the challenges and compromises made by Shinnecock to gain shelter and her own leaving beloved New York City for a commitment to this project in Shinnecock Hills as an artist resident. Presented in a series of artworks beginning with When Dreams Collide:  Shinnecock: Life, Art and the Pursuit of Happiness (2008).

From a culture centered on the natural world to the industrial through to the technological revolution of today. Referencing mass culture and the feminine within “set” societal structures. Advocating the legal right to vote by American women launched as the Women’s Property Act enacted (April 7, 1848) “and adopted by New York State; and subsequently most other states by 1900, as part of a more general movement, underway since the 1820s, away from common law traditions in favor of the codification of law”. However, not until 1920 were Suffragists successful: the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

(Jan 15 2020) The 38th state voted to back the ERA, the first when Sandrow was in art school. But “Virginia’s decision does not seal the amendment’s addition to the United States Constitution. A deadline for three-quarters, or 38, of the 50 states to approve the E.R.A. expired in 1982.” open/close reflects the reality of gender discrimination, and sexual harassment often taking place behind closed doors, in daily life.