Biography

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way.
Is an immense World of Delight, clos'd by your senses five?
-from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

Karin Franzen, a long-time resident of Alaska and a full-time studio artist, has created a body of work that is both innovative and soundly tied to tradition. This body of work revolves around one of her favorite subjects, the birds of Alaska. Franzen's art is the result of an eclectic past. Born and rasied in Britton, South Dakota, USA, her father was a mortician and the human condition, in its most material and spiritural aspects, was never far from home. The constant presence of the intangible nature of our unique existence instilled in her a respect and desire for the divine in everyday life—a presence that can often be felt lurking beneath the images in her best work. Her mother encouraged an understanding and love of art, and she learned to sew under the direction of her grandmother. Days spent exploring the surrounding prairies and wetlands initiated a love of the biological world that would evenutally lead her to a degree in Biology with an Art minor from the University of North Dakota.

A sense of adventure and an insatiable curiosity brought her to Alaska where work in the construction industry let to yet another degree—this time in Civil Engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. During her years as a structural engineer, she began mushing dogs and started a small manufacturing business that would eventually grow to be a primary means of support. The retirement from engineering and the sale of Taiga Mushing Supplies allowed Franzen the privilege of fulfilling the dream she had harbored since childhood—a life as a full-time studio artist. Her studio is just a short walk from her home on Chena Hot Springs Road that she shares with her architect husband Glen Kravitz. It's in this studio that she explores different media in order to express that which can only be expressed through art.

Franzen uses the skills honed over a lifetime-drawing, mathematics, structural design, sewing, an understanding of biology, and business acumen-to create her work. Rather than placing her recent subjects, mostly ravens and cranes, within typical scenic vistas, they are nested within various fabric genres ranging from traditional American quilting to her own hand-dyed fabrics. The concept of the art quilt is not new, but the use of fabric to achieve painterly ends in Alaskan art is relatively recent, and Franzen's images are rendered skillfully enough that one doesn't see the quilt first, but rather the subject of the piece. Her agility with line and color and the skillful use of modeling and perspective leads to a dominance of the image over the medium in which it's presented. It is for this reason that her pieces are seen as works of fine art.

—Madera Hill