Karen-Ann Windchild is a contemporary clay and mixed media sculptor-craftsman. She uses human and animal figures, ritual objects and altar tableaus to evoke spirit and nature. The work is both ancient and timeless, tribal yet universal. It is an intuitive reponse to the great mystery of life.

“Life is spirit
materialized.
Art is matter
spiritualized
and humanized.
My art must feel
right, charge space
with energy,
become alive.”

Karen was born in West Hartford, CT. She has been working in clay and mixed media since age four. She earned a BFA in sculpture and ceramics from the University of Michigan and her MFA from Pennsyvania State University. Additional ceramic studies include Alfred University, Hartford Art School, Sacramento State University and Florida Atlantic University.

Windchild has taught art and ceramics since 1975 at Penn State, SUNY Fredonia, Community College of Rhode Island, Florida Atlantic University and numerous art and community centers. Windchild has exhibited throughout the US. She has a permanent installation at the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick and has won numerous awards. She is available for lectures and workshops. A collection of her work is currently on display at the Kane Marie Gallery in Virginia Beach, VA.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Artmaking is meditation for me. Spirit comes through the clay, body of Earth herself, through my fingrs, through visions, and from objects like a twig or stone. When I do my best work, I feel like I disappear, becoming an open doorway throughwhich beings enter.

I get a sense of what wants to become, what to gather and include. I love the richness of joined materials, bone, silk, glass beads and paint, with the simple evidence in clay of the act of making.

Clay is central. I enjoy the changes in clay from receptive and squishy to hard and brittle. It requires awareness of timing and appropriate action.

I do not imitate any specific native cultures, although I am touched by many. I believe my work comes from the same place as theirs - connection to nature and the Great Mystery - and thus there are similarities.

I believe in the ancient role of Artists-Shaman-Mythspeaker, infusing energy into ordered matter as the essense of both ritual and art: bringing love and respect for materials, for technique, for inspiration, for self and for place in the whole, so that all may prosper.