Guest Artist of the Month

We are proud to announce Karen Colbert as Mountain Arts Collective’s guest artist for February. Karen created her first piece of fabric art in 1999. Since then, she has been voted “Best Local Artists” twice at the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. At a glance, Karen’s quilts look like paintings. Stepping closer, you see the small squares of fabric she uses to create a magnificent landscape or abstract color transitional piece. Her work truly captures the essence of art, in both composition and vibrancy of color. Although quilting is a traditional medium goes, Karen’s impressionistic quilts take on a different flavor than those of our ancestors. Each piece is functional, and her unique twist of using color instead of complicated quilt patterns make her pieces stand apart visually from more traditional quilts. Using simple squares when creating her quilts, she can focus on the artistic elements of the quilt versus the intricacies of the patterns. It is the play with the colors that fascinates Karen and gives her quilts their individuality. Karen’s work has been featured in the Tahoe Quarterly, the San Francisco Chronicle, and local art shows.