Friday, June 21, 2013

Artist Profile: Karen Rips

Karen Rips
Thousand Oaks, California

1,  What year did you make your first quilt?    Traditional or art?   I made my first quilt in 1980.  I took a class at Louis's Quiltworks in Sherman Oaks, CA, and made an entire full size bed quilt by hand.  I will never so that again, but I learned so much.

2.  What is the first show, and year, that you ever entered your art quilts?  Venue?   The first show I was juried into was called "At The Cutting Edge - Contemporary Fabric Art" at the Ventura County Museum of Art in 2004. What a wonderful feeling it was to have my work recognized as art.  That feeling persists today when I'm juried into a show.

3.  What is your artistic style?  My style is abstract realism.

4.  Have you ever changed your style from when you started making quilts?  I think my work was more realistic at the start of my career, but has become more abstract as I have become more comfortable with myself.

5.  What other style in quilt making piques your interest?   I have always been attracted to very simple embroidery lines and would love to incorporate that more in my own work.  I don't feel I have the confidence yet to do that very well, but I'm working at it.

6.  What other medium in art influences your work as a fiber artist?  Right now that medium would be encaustic.  I love the depth you can get with layers of wax, and would love to be able to reproduce that with fiber. 

7.  What do you have coming up?  Shows, Articles in magazines, Books, etc.  I am in Quilt National 2013, which opens at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio on May 24th, and my friend Paula Chung and I will have an exhibit at the Visions Gallery in Chandler, AZ  titled "A View Within" from Sept. 13th through October 26th

8.  Where will your art take you from here?  The next goal I've set for myself is to be in national art show.  Of course, when you say where will my art take me, I would love to go all the places my work travels to.

9.  Describe your studio space:  I am fortunate to have a large studio in my home, with a wet area for dyeing and surface design, and a dry area for my design wall and sewing machines.  When I'm working I'm messy, but I try to clean up between projects.  That being said, I often have 2 or 3 projects going on at once.

10. What was the biggest challenge you have encountered in the making of your art quilt for "An Exquisite Moment?"   To be honest, the theme was difficult for me.  I kept trying to think of the one exquisite moment, then finally relaxed into realizing there are lots of exquisite moments every day.

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