Thriving Through The Arts

I became an apprentice woodworker in 1993 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while helping my mother remodel a hundred year old Victorian home near the University, which I had been attending for two years. I designed my first piece just before moving to Northern California in 1995, but was unable to build more of my own designs until 2006. For the decade in between, I worked in furniture shops, with at-risk kids, and at an environmental education facility, in Northern California. I also completed a degree in Culture, Ecology and Sustainability, having figured out how to connect all of my seemingly disparate interests.
I had always planned to keep designing and building furniture over the course of my life, but I had hoped to do that within an ecologically-focused artist’s community, and start a mentoring program for at-risk teens (by which time they’ve hopefully acquired good motor skills so as to learn to use tools safely.) As an apprentice I discovered the healing potential of the creative arts as well as the therapeutic process of learning a craft. There is tremendous value both in the give and take of mentorship and the individual process of honing one’s skills, not to mention the final result of having produced a piece of work in which one can take pride.
Aside from art programs I had hoped to teach a broad curriculum of workshops, including organic agronomy, ethical animal husbandry, astronomy, ecology, biology, appropriate technology, literature, and history. We would be off the grid, own a biodiesel flatbed truck, a solar powered tractor, and have extensive orchards and gardens.  My plan was to open an art gallery and a cafe nearby to display the community’s work. I saw us being a regional resource for arts and permaculture education wherever it is that we might have sprouted. 
Instead of doing this on a small scale, I later imagined making it part of a larger plan for sustainable community development on a national or even global level. I call this the Kibbutzim Project (the term Kibbutz originated in the early emerging proto-state of Israel over a century ago,) perhaps ironically in some ways, as I cannot support the occupation of West Bank, and only support settlements on the Israeli side of the Green Line. A Two-State compromise would be the cause of a great deal of spiritual and international healing. But the healing of this protracted and ferocious conflict will require a lot of support from the international community, and Palestine will need aid in developing its infrastructure and economy, so that its people will flourish, as Israel has received ample aid so far in its lifetime. Israel no longer needs our help, as it has a thriving economy and educational system all its own. It is Palestine that now needs recognition and assistance to propel it into prosperity and stability. It must be acknowledged that both Israelis and Palestinians are traumatized people. Generational trauma from the Holocaust and the Naqba are a source of unresolved turmoil for both peoples, and must be properly addressed for peace and self-actualization on both sides to happen.
I have another project, Community Healing Centers, which would provide an economical, holistic alternative to mainstream hospitals in the frontline treatment of many health issues plaguing marginalized communities. They would empower people to take control of their health in a way that is not encouraged given the model of healthcare currently operating in our nation. Please contact me for more information on these projects.

About my work as an artist:
Wood has a living quality which inspires my work. When I find a piece of lumber which excites my imagination I get caught up in the subtleties of its grain and color, and find myself transported.  I hope I manage to translate some of what I see and feel with a finished piece. One viewer once exclaimed to me: “I get it!  Your work is very playful!” and this describes one aspect of it. I’ve explored what could be considered my whimsical side which I think is directly connected to my search for antidotes to pain. I would also describe some of my work as rather Pagan in the way it expresses reverence for biotic themes. My greatest sense of safety and joy has always been out in nature or in the shop, so it is small wonder that the two intersect.
My work is also informed by a rather unusual set of life experiences, which is reflected in my artistic sensibility and style as well as my writing. I look forward to expressing this in paints and metal arts also, as my skills improve. Most recently I’ve been creating collage canvasses out of sycamore bark, which I’m calling my “Psyche and Skin” series. I’ve been using salvaged flooring for the substrate and frames, making the entire piece out of reclaimed materials. I see them as an expression of my pantheistic vision of reality. The bark represents the skin that is our physical body, interconnected with and springing from the evolutionary processes of Earth’s DNA, while the painted images and the compositional arrangement of the bark represent the internal experience of consciousness, as manifested by our individual psyches, and the aspects of existence which assist us in transcending the human condition (see the section titled Photos 3.)     
Email me:
mail@karenumland.com

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=66611&id=1248852205http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=307642&id=1248852205shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1


Animated growth, like trees, never proceeds in straight lines. Trees are not like the walls of a house... they adjust to the living conditions of wind, sun, soil, and rain.


~Ruth Cohn



























To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.


~Osho












When patterns are broken new worlds emerge.


~Tuli Kupferber
























A melody of all my life; to sweat out anger, to concentrate on the tasks of life, to feel the pleasure and delight of loneliness and freedom, to be all of a human being.


~Fritz Scheiber



























The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want to know the kernel you must break the shell.


~Meister Eckart














The mind is a hungry beast, and it must be fed nourishing ideas in order to function at its highest potential.


~Me






Setting Down Roots

This is the free demo result. You can also download a complete website from archive.org.