(c) SZing The delightful Karen Reed (blue shirt),
and three of my other favorite glass art people
(Raphael Scnepf, Allison Klinger and Marlena Marenka) at Arrowmont.
Karen and I met while taking a class at Arrowmont School of Craft in Gatlinburg, TN several years ago. I was impressed with her kindness and skill. She brought "give aways" of shards/leftovers from some of her screen printed glass pieces. As I am a frustrated wanna-be quilter and deeply in love with textures and pattern, I fell instantly in love with the lovely tid-bits she brought. She made a "quilted" panel and I also made a small sampler from some of the screen printed pieces she shared.
The lovely quilted sampler of screen printed pieces fused together--made by Karen Reed.
Artwork (c) Karen Reed, picture taken by SZing and (c) SZing, used by permission of the artist.
A gorgeous piece and amazingly just a "play around" panel.
Karen is well known for her stained glass and is frequently commissioned to do large scale windows and works. She teaches at Arrowmont (I am looking forward to the day when my schedule will coincide with hers so I can take one of her classes), and she also is a regular writer for Fired Arts & Crafts Magazine, among others.
You can see the "quilting" influence here. WOW! I aspire to emulate the skill and beauty of Karen's delightful works. Amazing! I can only imagine how long this took for her to assemble and fire.
(c) Karen Reed "Dreamtime", used by permission of the artist.
Some of her work reminds me a great deal of the great artist Susan Seddon Boulet, but is uniquely Karen's own work. Astounding frit painted glasswork!
(c) Karen Reed "She Who Sees Through Dreams", used by permission of the artist.
(c)Karen Reed, "Silent Wonder", used by permission of the artist.
My hat is off to Ms. Karen Reed for her inspiring, delightful and gorgeous body of work in the field of glass. My hat is also off to Ms. Karen Reed for being one of the nicest, most noble human beings I've ever met. May she continue to prosper and thrive!
