Karen Kopacz
Artist, Designer, Collaborator, & Nature-Dweller
Developing a Creative Workspace in Nature
Karen Kopacz, Artist & Writer
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As an artist, writer, and designer, I have spent much of my life seeking and cultivating partnerships in creative endeavors. The spirit of work expands when others are invited to a creative experience. Dialogue and sharing ideas bring life to creative projects.
Gathering people together in creative process has always been part of my path. Loose Leaf is another version of it—one that I’ve been concepting for a decade. In 2020, I began the work of bringing a place that I have imagined into reality—a place to immerse myself in nature and creative work—a place to gather and reconnect. While connecting with nature feels particularly important in this moment, I also believe that connective work with each other can happen anywhere. Some of my favorite collaborative moments happened spontaneously. All that matters is that two or more people show up for each other with a willingness to listen and share. Still, I’m aware of how place and environment shape our experiences, so this studio in-the-making will be a place where creative work can happen in context with nature.
Current Project
New Midwestern Nature Stories
An Illustrated Collection of Nature Stories In the Midwest
A Long History of Art, Design, & Magazine-Making
Karen Kopacz is an artist and writer as well as a designer and brand developer (Design for the Arts, LLC) with a long history of artistic collaborations and project leadership in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Since 2017, she has been the designer for Hand Papermaking, a globally-acclaimed art and paper-making journal.
In 2022, Karen completed the Big Woods, Big Rivers Master Naturalist program and became a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. She is working toward establishing an art studio on a 6-acre woodland lot along the Namekagon River in Northern Wisconsin.
Karen has been a musician, a mobile art gallery curator, and SXSW Interactive Festival panel member for Fostering New Culture on the Internet. From 2000 to 2008, she collaborated monthly with artists and writers publish Mental Contagion, an arts & literature online magazine featuring a global community of arts and culture creators.