Join Visiting Artist Juliet Karelsen to participate in the collaborative art sculpture, Lichens and Mosses: Eco Friends. During this art time, children and families will learn about the importance of lichens and mosses in our forests while creating their own fiber-based "lichen and moss" art objects using recycled and up-cycled materials to be included on a collaborative paper-maché Community Rock. Visits are on three Saturdays: March 25, April 1, and April 29.

Artist Bio:

Juliet Karelsen was trained as a painter at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Karelsen has been making eco-related fiber work since taking a stitching workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in 2015. In all its various forms and configurations, Karelsen's work cross-references painting, stitching, landscape, textile, miniature worlds, psychedelics, and science – from botany to mycology to planetary and solar – touching on the micro and macro scales. Based on observation of "the real," Karelsen makes work that has magical and fantastical elements. Through techniques such as embroidery, needle felting, cyanotype, printmaking, and quilting Karelsen creates descriptions of flowers, mosses, mushrooms, lichen, etc. The "artificial" materials used allude to human-created circumstances such as global warming and climate change while at the same time describing the magnificence of what is at stake. Karelsen has a long and varied background working with children, young adults, and families. Karelsen practiced Art Therapist from 1988-1995, which included a private practice in Farmington for the last four years. Karelsen has taught art-related classes (basic drawing, art in the classroom, art therapy) at Ohio State University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (teaching fellow), and the University of Maine at Farmington. Karelsen homeschooled her daughter from when she was 7 to 14 years old, teaching art, math, foreign languages, and history and creating fun and inspiring field trips and curriculums for her and other homeschoolers. Currently, Karelsen is involved with Hope Acts, which is an organization in Portland that helps asylum seekers and immigrants. Karelsen assists in the ESL classes and is involved with the Asylum Seeker Assistance Program which helps folks to access services and understand/complete documents. "