About Page
Artist Statement
Karen M. Telford, M.A., taught painting, drawing and two-dimensional foundation classes as an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Art at Morehead State University in eastern Kentucky before retiring due to health challenges. She is a published poet, visual artist, and curator of the healingArt exhibit that toured Kentucky and Ohio for years. She is a healing art practitioner who has been an attending member at the international conferences of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, and completed the three week intensive Arts in Medicine course at Shands Medical Center, the University of Florida, Gainesville.
About the works:
I have lived my life close to the land of Kentucky, first as a child on my grandfather's tobacco farm, then as a breeder of horses.
In my current life challenge of living with cancer, I find great comfort and strength in the wild and natural places, seeking out especially the flowing falling waters of the mountains.
This remarkable series of images began to emerge on one of these excursions, an early spring twilight spent in the Bad Branch Nature Preserve in Letcher County, Kentucky, in March of 2002. Sitting on a rock by the small stream, experiencing the timeless solitude, I mused upon the past inhabitants of the area, letting my imagination ripple along with the chuckling waters... Who had rested here like this, centuries ago? Who had known this land far more intimately than I ever would have time to know it? Did they linger still, did they resent or welcome my presence? In a moment of whimsy, I even wondered what it would be like if there WERE fairies?! ...Spirits of the water and land who had communicated with the human inhabitants in those long-ago ages of connection.
Perhaps those who lived on this land and loved it as their life never had to leave, but remained in the fabric of the water and stone itself.
Would they show themselves to my camera? I took my little camera and held it over the moving water, releasing the shutter randomly, even as my thoughts leaped randomly along... Perhaps I'll have some interesting abstract compositions of the water, I thought.
That evening at home I viewed the digital captures for the first time and saw the image I came to call "Spirits of Bad Branch" ...flowing water patterns that resolved themselves into what is to me the unmistakable and powerful image of a Native American elder.
After recovering from the considerable shock of this experience, my first question was, of course, would it happen again?? Was it an anomaly connected to the use of a digital camera... which is so subject to assumptions of computer manipulation? Bottom line: could I achieve images like this with a negative for PROOF?
The answer is displayed on this website.
What does it mean? Ultimately, I have no idea. I suspect something different for each viewer, as is the case with art in general. But as is also the case with a great art experience, these images changed the way I SEE... changed my very idea of reality.
I had one of those earnest passionate art-student conversations in the hallways of MSU during my first undergraduate semester; the topic was, predictably, how we bright burning talents would change the world. On a more practical level, with the blithe arrogance of youth, we wondered what we would be called in future art history texts... The Transformationists, we finally declared.
The study of art brings a gift far beyond the accomplishment of technical skill, or even the creation of beauty. Involvement in art teaches you to SEE. Then, like pure science, it teaches you to wonder "What else is...?" It teaches you to open yourself to possibilities. Those outside, and those hidden within yourself.
Art has transformed me. My artist's mind has literally kept me alive far beyond medical expectation. Art has infused me with awe at what has appeared at the end of my brush, from the impetus of my very breath, and now, from the darkness of my camera body.
I am frankly in awe of these photographs. I tremble slightly at the temerity of calling them "my" creations. I don't really believe that. It's not enough. But of course, I had to be here to receive, to accept the opening of the door beyond fear, to transform energy of some unseen and certainly heretofore widely unrecognized form into a medium that can be held and examined.
Are they Archetypal images drawn from The Collective Unconscious? Revival portraits of energies/entities that have long been recognized only in human legend and myth? At last, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, here IS photographic evidence of the existence of fairies?!? Or are they subconscious forms and elements arranged in compositional space by the emission of light and energy patterns of my DNA in accordance with the emerging principles of vortex mechanics? Like a child clapping for the life of Tinker Bell, do I now have photographs of fairies because I once let myself BELIEVE in the possibility of fairies? (It's not so farfetched to a person who knows she is still alive far beyond medical prognoses largely because she chose not to believe medical prognoses.)
All of the above? Got another idea? I'd love to hear from you.
I don't know. Here they are. They are real - I have negatives. Lots of them. It is up to you to decide, or to decide not to care.
After all, art doesn't care if it's explained or not. Art Is.
It is my simple and profound hope that these images will bring as much joy and wonder and awe into your life as they have brought into mine.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth..."
bright blessings,
ka ren
...................
AT THIS PARTY
I don't want to be the only one here
Telling all the secrets --
Filling up all the bowls at this party,
Taking all the laughs.
I would like you
To start putting things on the table
That can also feed the soul
The way I do.
That way
We can invite
A hell of a lot more
Friends.
-- by Hafiz
(translated by Daniel Ladinsky)
Exhibitions
Jul 2007
Ky Women Photographers, Louisville, Kentucky
The Infinite Fineness of the Feminine
2007
Gallery on Main, Richmond, Kentucky
Shaped by Water
2007
Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia
Exhibition 280
Jan-Feb 07
Kentucky Appalchian Artisan Center, Hindman
The Face of Unseen Things, solo exhibit
Jan 07-08
Appalshop, traveling regionally in KY and VA
Images From the Mountains, juried exhibit
11/06-3/07
Kentucky Folk Art Center
Sticks and Stones
Sept 2006
The Art Depository, Nicholasville, Kentucky
Seen and Unseen: Photographs by Karen Telford and Walt Roycroft
June 2006
The Art Depository, Nicholasville, Kentucky
Essence, Composure, Healing
June 2006
Morehead State University, Kentucky
The Bluegrass Biennial
May 2006
Gallery for the Arts, Mt Sterling, Kentucky
Miniature Paintings and Drawings
Aug 2004
Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia
TRAA juried exhibition
June 2004
Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth
Cream of the Crop
June 2004
Morehead State University, Kentucky
Bluegrass Biennial
Feb-Apr 06
Art-at-the-Cathedral, Lexington, KY
From Darkness to Light
2003
Kentucky Governors Mansion, Frankfort
Kentucky Visions
Jan 05-06
Appalshop, Whitesburg, Kentucky, touring regionally
Images From the Mountains, juried exhibit
Spring 05
Kentucky Folk Art Center
Kentucky Water juried exhibition
Sep-Nov 05
Jean Calvert Center Gallery, Maysville Community College, Kentucky
The Face of Unseen Things, solo exhibit
2005
Morehead, Kentucky
Morehead Art Guild
Dec 2005
Morehead, Kentucky
Cave Run Arts Association Invitational
Jan 2006
Art-at-the-Cathedral, Lexington, KY
For the Delight of Children
2006-07
Appalshop, Whitesburg, Kentucky touring regionally
Images From the Mountains
Gallery Representation
the imaginatrium
Reviews and Press
03/13/2005
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) - March 13, 2005 - D7 Arts + Life
'WATER' WORKS AND IS REFRESHING, PHOTOGRAPHY CREATES A SPLASH IN DIVERSE FOLK ART CENTER EXHIBIT
09/12/2004
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) - September 12, 2004 - D7 Arts + Life
ART'S POWER TO HEAL IS BEAUTIFULLY REVEALED Perhaps, it would be too sad, too self-indulgent or a plain bore.. How satisfying to walk into the Gallery for the Arts in Mount Sterling and be so wrong. This show has beauty, wit, intelligence...
10/11/2005
KCTCS/Maysville Ledger Independent
MCTC art exhibit focuses on beauty, strength of water
5/18/06
MSU News
The Bluegrass Biennial art exhibit: Showcasing the wealth of visual art in Kentucky
Jul 2006
In Motion Ashland Daily Independent
A Biennial of Bluegrass Art (Page 26) Telford makes her photographs intuitively. She calls her work documentary surrealism.
Jan 2007
KFW Grant Recipients
Karen M. Telford, Wellington, KY, $3600 for a traveling exhibition of photographs that reintegrate the image of the archetypal feminine and the natural world.
Karen's Favorites
JOE SARTOR my favorite painter!
Honest Leadership - Dennis Kucinich
Arts in Medicine at Shands, FL
Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Laura Eklund...abstract capital-E-expressionist! paintings
Ann W. Olson - photographer, writer
K.M.Telford article/photos on Sam McKinney
Wishing Chair, great folk music
Lyall Watson, who is as responsible as anyone for my being open to receive these photographs...
Cultural Creatives - are you one?
Geraldine Lewis...paintings with conscience and soul
Lelavision - extraordinary! Music, dance and sculpture in performance
Kentucky Center for Native American Arts and Culture - needs your support!