Karen as an Artist

“I remember the day I was inspired to create my first painting. I wore a plastic apron and surrounded myself with tempera paints. I painted a giant sun disc and when I finished, I had this huge sense of Wow!”

Over the years Karen has exhibited extensively nationally and abroad; in galleries, museums, and beyond. She has been commissioned to create numerous public art projects for the King County Council Chambers in Seattle, Seattle-Tacoma Airport, Overlake Transit Center in Redmond, and more.

Always drawn to leadership roles, Karen taught art at Seattle Pacific University, The Factory of Visual Art, and at Centrum in Port Townsend. She has also been very active in the Northwest art scene as the President of the board of Artist Trust.

In 1989 Guzak found herself in need of a community of artists. While most of us might join a club, Karen found a warehouse and converted it into artist’s live/workspaces: Sunny Arms Artist Cooperative, (named for its proximity to the Sunny Jim peanut butter factory) where she lived and worked.

A few years later she did a repeat performance, renovating a building into the Union Art Cooperative developed with Gene and Lois Graham.

Karen’s First Websites: Here & Here

A combination of a studio shot taken in 2002 of Karen with her painting “Steller Zone” (42 x 72 inches wide, 1996); and a video produced by Bellevue TV of Karen’s 140th Avenue Public Art Project in Bellevue, 2008.