photographer and collage artist
photographer and collage artist karen hanrahan is a self-taught creative. her nest is empty. she is an elder. she takes way too many photographs of very everyday living with a simple point and shoot camera. she assembles and machine stitches paper scraps much like that of a crazy quilt - a technique that took her years to perfect. she is a prolific maker.
artist karen hanrahan was born in ontario, raised in the midwest, and migrated to the pnw in her late 50’s. she loves road trips, reading, scratch cooking and all things vintage glass.
for quite sometime she thought of herself as a closet creative. that meant she wasn’t officially an artist. today, she is out of the closet creatively and feels like an artist each and everyday. karen is captivated by the image stories around her. many are very everyday imagery. her signature style is described as organic, up close, and authentic. many say that her images are narrative. she loves that.
karen began tearing apart magazine images and assembling them into collage in the late 90's. finding the process insightful and relaxing she shared the technique with others. her creative subconscious collage workshop evolved and became popular. after many years of facilitating workshops this methodology is still tried and true. timeless, actually. a trust in the process is key, a willingness to play another, and taking the time to immerse also becomes part of doing creative subconscious collage. for some years karen applied this technique to journaling. Her torn bits of magazine narrated love, pain, loss and courage.
facilitating workshops is one way that karen teaches others how to collage.
after a good 5 year run, collage with me sessions have now ended.
