Conversations with Karen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen.

Hi Karen , it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am a visual artist. I feel like I have always been an artist, even when I was out in the corporate world working for a living. I left that world in January of 1989 to begin my own business selling frame-able greeting cards with my drawings on them.

Even before I left the corporate world to be a full-time artist, I belonged to a co-op gallery in Pasadena, The Firehouse Gallery, participated in many local art shows, including the Sierra Madre Art Fair for 30 years and was the “Honored Artist” one year. That year I created the dragon t-shirt for the fair.

In the early 70’s I began to paint murals. It started on my own living room wall in a home I was renting in Altadena. I painted several giant sunflowers that “grew” up the wall to the ceiling where they looked down on me. When my friends saw them, I began to create murals on their walls. Charles Kennedy of the Kennedy Company on Woodbury Rd. In Altadena, commissioned one for the conference room. After that, RCA had a trade magazine that featured a Telex operator every month. The magazine did a nice article about me and my walls with a picture of me taken by a friend, Erik Stephen.
When I started a card business in January of 1989, I had no idea how it would take off. I had a distributor on the east coast and one in the UK in Dorset. My oldest daughter, Anna, did a lot of production and shipping from her home in Florida. Chelsea, the next one, helped with production at home in my studio. Dalton, my grandson, often helped with production, as well.

I illustrated “Celebrate the Earth” by Laurie Cabot in 1994, which led me to produce the illustrations as colorful cards for all the Pagan holidays. Soon I had a few reps setting up in-store book-signings and card promotions up and down the coast in California.

My card business sent me to sales events in Las Vegas, Paulsbo, Washington, Fayetteville and Eureka Springs in Arkansas, several places in Florida and, of course, many beach towns in California.

It was a great life. I joked with friends that I “got away with not working” by just doing what I love!
I shuttered my business in 2024 due to blindness. I have a genetic condition that leads to blindness and, while I knew it was coming, I mostly lived in denial.

Today I continue to be an artist with a very different way of working. I’ve always done fine line drawings with pen and ink with watercolor washes. Here is my website witch shows the work I’m known for: www.morethanmermaids.com

Now I âm drawn to handmade papers and decoupage. While I do not see color very well, my friends and family help me identify the colors of my papers (many of which I memorize) and then I tear and cut papers to create images and designs. I like to work on canvas and on various forms.

I have had the good fortune of enjoying drawing the things I like to draw such as mermaids, fairies, Old World Santas, angels, flowers, etc. People liked them and they sold well.

Today I have the good fortune of being able to experiment with art and go wherever my feelings take me and I no longer need to be concerned about who will buy them.

On January 7, 2025, just before I was to turn 80, he Eaton Fire took everything I had worked for: My home of 51 years (I was one of the first women in Altadena to purchase her home with an FHA loan, which had just opened in 1974 to women who were head of a household. Lost in the fire was a lifetime of original artwork that I willl never be able to replicate due to my blindness; all the artwork of my parents, both of whom were artists; and my desire to live out my life there.

I grew up in Altadena and learned to speak English when I started school in 1950. Burned are the home I grew up in, the home I lived in with my first husband, the home I lived in as a single mother and the home I purchased 51 years ago. Also burned is Altadena Community Church that housed an 8’x12’ mural I created titled, “Tree of Life.” This tree was in the shape of a cross. To the left it was morning and to the right it was night. The left showed spring that morphed into summer, then to fall and leaves dropping and then the far right branches were bare with icicles, snow and moonlight.

Today, after the fire, I live in a beautiful home in Pasadena above the Rose Bowl. I live in a spacious room in a large and lovely home with sky lights. It is surrounded in gardens. It’s quiet here except for the sounds of wildlife and activities in the Rose Bowl. It’s both peaceful and vibrant at the same time. At first I missed my old home and often had bouts of homesickness. Now I’ve settled in, am focused on rebuilding in Altadena and enjoying my friends and my creative energy again.

A recent piece of art, 36” square, depicts the night of the fire. The moon was seven days from the first full moon of the new year, the “Wolf Moon.” It was the night my house “died.” The moon light was so beautiful and I took one last long look at my beautiful home, realizing I might never see it again. I was very much aware of the moon… as though it was sitting shiva with me.

Here is my haiku poem to go with it:

Wolf Moon shining bright
Leading and lighting my way
Keeping me in sight

Here is a short video I created about coming to terms with vision loss:
https://vimeo.com/491898899

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
In retrospect I would say my life has been blessed. I was able to stay home with a young daughter, draw what I most love to draw and discovered that people loved my images. My card business grew beyond where I thought it would go.

Working for yourself is not always easy. It requires discipline, planning and stick-to-itism. While I went through some tough time financially, I never regretted leaving the corporate world.

Many lessons I learned came from my father when I was a child. He had is own business and, while his words didn’t make much sense to me as a kid, they sure did when they echoed back in my memory as an adult. When I wanted something as a kid, he would sometimes say to me. “I have to pay my workers first and then the bills. We’ll see if there is enough to buy that sweater you want.” It hardly satisfied me as a kid but I certainly understood as an adult. Dad used to say, “If I don’t pay my workers on time, they won’t work for me again when I need them.” He had great relationships with his workers and with his customers. That is essential in business.

There were times I had doubts about my ability to keep things “afloat.” Over the years I developed a belief in myself that sustained me through hard times. I always took care of myself and my family.

I believe in vacations. Life is short and, no matter how hard you may have to work, always give yourself a vacation. I do this daily. I set aside a chunk of time to just be with myself and stay in the present moment. When the kids were small and the budget wouldn’t handle too much frivolity, we went camping or simply stayed home and hosted potluck parties. Fun does not have to be expensive nor does it mean going away somewhere.

My mother’s wisdom stayed with me, too. She would say, “when you grow up and have kids, be sure to play with them. When they want you to play, drop the work you are doing and play. The work will be there when you are done playing but the kids may not be there when you are through working.” Such wise words!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I suppose I’m best known for my mermaids. I love mermaids and I always have ever since I was a kid. I grew up in the Esthere Williams era. I also had a Danish sea captain grandfather who told me wonderful stories of mermaids, fairies, elves, etc. In about 1972 I painted a larger than life mermaid at the bottom of a swimming pool at a home on Cartwright Street in Upper Hastings Ranch in Pasadena. It took up the entire pool and, when the water was put in, she seemed to move and float. That was a huge project! I could only work on it at night or it would have been blinding. It was a rewarding project but I knew I would never do that again. That was really hard work.

In addition, for the past seven years I have been teaching art for the City of Pasadena’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services department. I teach two children’s classes, “Coloring Outsde the Lines”, and an Adaptive Art Class for developmentally delayed adults. I enjoy helping people find their “inner artist.” I believe we all have that creative spirit. We simply need to discover it and believe in it. My focus for the classes is to “fan the flames” of creativity and to help my students believe in themselves and honor their creativity.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
First of all, I believe that, for the most part, happiness is a state of mind you have a choice about. Life is really tough sometimes… even when’d we are at the pinnacle of wealth. If you step back for a moment to look at all of humanity, we cannot deny that we are among the wealthiest people… in fact, at the very pinnacle.

That realization gives us a perspective that is most favorable, regardless of what challenges we face. Gratitude is at the heart of happiness in my opinion.

Gratitude and giving are essential. They go hand in hand. Giving can be as simple as the way we treat our family and friends, neighbors and strangers. It can be a smile for someone who is bagging your groceries or someone passing you on your walk.

Giving can be invisible, like when you take a neighbor shopping or cook a mean for someone recovering or bringing in their mail. It can be a stretch for your budget when you write a check for a cause you deeply believe in. It can be the time you sit with a young reader to.help them enjoy a book.

Receiving help with gratitude is also a gift. It is giving the gift of giving to another. It is your opportunity to express gratitude to someone. All these things are interconnected and are a huge part of happiness.

I find happiness in all the sweet memories of living in my home of 51 years. That is something the fire can never destroy. I fend happiness in my alone time under the sprawling oak tree where I now live. It’s in a large garden behind a wall lined with dozens of flowering plants, butterflies and birds. There’s the sound of the fountain splashing water. On the hottest day I can sit there and be content in the now.

I find happiness in watching my adult children and grandchildren finding friendships with each other and coming together as a family. Through the fire, the death of my husband a little over a year ago and the successful battles with three rounds of cancer among two of us in the past year, I rejoice in our ability to “circle our wagons” and care for each other in very cooperative ways.

There is great happiness for me in my artwork: Imagining; creating; the trials and errors; the discoveries; and, most of all the completing of one project giving birth to new ideas for my next project.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.morethanmermaids.com

Image Credits
Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey
Sandy Shin