Karen Scharer

Although Karen was born to artist parents – they met in an oil painting class – and showed some early interest in drawing and painting, she did not give in to the urge to paint seriously until the mid 1980’s. She graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in forestry, a reflection of the love of the outdoors that she learned from her father.  In 1976, a job with the Forest Service took here from Montana to Boise, Idaho where, daunted by the prospects of having to move to Washington DC for a promotion, she eventually went to work for IBM. Karen started as a systems engineer, but quickly realized that she was more interested in working with people than machines, and switched to being a sales rep. In 1985 Karen married, and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she began – with tremendous teaching and support from some remarkable artists – to paint. After only a couple of years she started showing and selling her work. In 1991, the family moved to Colorado, and finally in 1997, after 17 very educational years, Karen left IBM to devote her time fully to her painting.

Karen’s art reflects her faith in imagination and intuition, and her fascination with the natural world. Painting provides the pathway for her ideas and visions to travel from the realm of imagination and spirit to the world of the tangible. When she begins a work, she does not know how it will end, but everything she has seen and experienced flows into the outcome. Karen sees each piece as an interaction – a conversation – between the evolving painting and herself. This approach to creating art is extremely personal – each piece is a unique result of who she is and how she relates to the world around her.