Still Life Sunday: Karen Lewis, Artist, and Karen Sirgey, Sculptor

Still Life hosts:  Karen Lewis, Artist, and Karen Sirgey, Sculptor

On select Sundays a unique still life will be designed by creative community members.  Participants drop-in and create in their own media influenced by the one of a kind still life. 

The still life will only be on display during the workshop hours. Participants bring their own supplies to sketch, draw, paint, write poetry, and or photograph the still life. No instructor will be teaching.  This is a creative platform to be inspired by.  Still Life workshops are 2 ½ hours in length, intended for youth 12 and older, families, college students, and creative individuals.

Karen Lee Lewis owns the Blue Plate Studio: A Creativity Lab for Writers and Artists. She curates a Visual Artist of the Month series for the studio, and she designs workshop programming to help artists and writers explore and integrate their interest in all forms of art. The studio hosts a monthly writing group, and hosts literary events, public art receptions, and even birthday parties. Karen is also a Teaching Artist for CEPA Gallery, and teaches creative writing to the residents of Canterbury Woods Gates Circle. For over 20 years Karen has taught creative writing at all grade levels, in public, private and parochial school settings, as well as for numerous non-profit organizations. Karen is a widely published author. Her full-length poetry collection is entitled What I Would Not Unravel, published by The Writers Den, and her chapbook Solitude was created as a response to Charles Burchfield’s painting Solitude.

Karen Lee Lewis is a fellow of Canada’s Banff Centre For Arts and Creativity. Canadian born, and raised in Welland, Ontario, Karen bought her first Minolta film camera when she was 15 years old, with earnings from her cafeteria job at Woolco Dept. Store.  Her formative years were shaped by the after-effects of several major strokes her mother suffered. She attended McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, receiving her Bachelor of Social Work, and Bachelor of Arts (Sociology). Before moving to the US she worked in child welfare for the Niagara regions’s Family and Children’s Services.

Currently, in her personal work, Karen is interested in experience that forms Ground Truthin print. Ground Truth, a term typically used by biologists, refers to information collected on location, where a person enters an environment and experiences it through firsthand observation. In 2017 Karen won the member’s show at the Carnegie Arts Center. She developed a series of photographic works, both abstract and realistic images, for a solo show in that space called Surfacing. Many of the images featured waterways throughout Western New York. Recently she has been inspired to create her own line of inks, made from locally foraged materials, with artesian well water that flows through her own back yard. 

Karen M. Sirgey is influenced by the classical and modern art and architecture in her hometown of Buffalo, NY, Karen started creating and building structures at a very young age. Inspired by the artwork that enhanced the natural environment; she began to experiment with materials and processes and eventually focused her work on sculpture for the garden.

After years of exploration with wood, glass, clay and other materials, she began an apprenticeship with Sculptor Mark Griffis. The introduction of metalsmithing techniques to her oeuvre changed the work considerably. Now with the ability to fabricate and cast metal, the work became larger and more reflective of her desire to create pieces that have a conversation with the landscape as well as the viewer.

Karen has won many awards, and grants. She has spent more than 30 years as an artist and teaching artist. Her work can be found in public spaces all over Western New York and in private collections in the United States and Canada.

Free with admission fee. Free for BPAC members and for BSC students with ID.  

For further information contact Kathy Gaye Shiroki at 716.878.3549 or shirokkg@buffalostate.edu