Karen Wheeler with one of her many paintings in the background.
Karen was born with a form of Muscular Dystrophy known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and she has been drawing since the age of five. Her favorite subjects were trees and female faces. Most of her early works were in watercolor, but she began working with oil paints when she was one of seven students chosen from a handicapped school to be mainstreamed into regular high school. An instructor there encouraged her to keep up her artwork and suggested that she try taking art in college. Karen followed his advice even though she found new challenges besides her disability. At the handicapped school no student was forced to study, and many there, including Karen, were not at the grade level according to their age. In college she not only competed with all able-bodied students in the art department, but she also had to work extra hard to catch up to her required grade level. During her junior college years Karen also struggled with several art instructors who felt she could not complete the work offered in their classes. She worked around these instructors, though, and transferred to California State University, Fullerton, where an instructor not only kept her from quitting school but convinced her that her artwork was as good as any other students’ in the art department. She received a Masters degree in art in 1981 with a 4.0 grade point average. In 1981, only 3% of all women in the United States who received Masters degrees were disabled, and that’s not even counting her excellent grade point average.
Karen found the challenge of watercolor much more intriguing at the university. Her emphasis in graduate study was illustration, and she developed her own unique style of painting by using a very small brush and very little pigment, creating a dry-brush effect resembling the work of a pencil. Part of her technique is something she likes to call "layering" in which she totally completes a small section of a painting at a time by adding layer after layer of pigment in very thin dot-like strokes. For example, if she is working on the beak of a bird, she may add layers of green, orange, pink, blue and yellow besides the typical golden colors. Karen believes this technique not only creates a sense of volume but also adds a luminous effect to all other aspects of the completed piece.
Most of her subject matter revolves around animals now, and she tries to capture their textures and the life in their eyes. She enjoys incorporating her strange sense of humor in her current works in which an animal that may not even exist is created because of a play on words, such as Mousequito. In this case wings and a stinger were added to a common mouse creating an entirely different creature. It’s pieces like this that bring her the most pleasure and she enjoys the reactions of others who view her work with a smile or laughter.
Karen hides or places a rose in every painting completed after 1986. It represents her in her work, and it is one of the most loved and accepted flowers in societal and visual terms. When she relates the rose to herself and her life, she also considers the strength and the thorns besides the beauty they possess. Therefore, when people view Karen's work they not only feel her presence, they accept her and enjoy her work for the beauty and pleasure it brings.
Each painting takes Karen approximately 80 to 150 hours to complete. She begins usually with a title that interests her and then she envisions the painting completed in her head. She then acquires visual references from her massive library of animal photo resources. First she takes every picture that may only have a small piece of useful information. Once all resources have been collected, she cancels-out pieces that do not match the vision she has formulated in her mind. The resources that are left will be used for color, composition, placement of subject, and details until the entire painting is finished. The completed image is usually very close, if not better, than her original mental picture.
Karen was the only disabled artist on the Board of Directors of Very Special Arts California, a non-profit organization dedicated to integrating mentally and physically challenged adults and children into society via the arts, from 1985 to 1992. She not only coordinated and participated in major state-wide exhibits and programs but also held the position of Vice President for 1 ½ terms. She is still on the Honorary Board. Karen was selected Disabled Professional Woman of the Year by the Pilot Club of Southeast Los Angeles in 1990.
Karen now resides in Henderson, Nevada and is currently the only surviving professional artist in Southern Nevada with a neuromuscular disease. She has work in five galleries and her greeting cards are being sold in 15 different locations throughout the West Coast. She has collectors who live all over the world, a list of which includes Julian Lennon, Phil Collins, Shadoe Stevens, Justin Hayward, Joan Rivers, and Steven Seagal. Other organizations Karen likes to involve herself with are the Nevada Watercolor Society, the Vegas Artists Guild and the local Muscular Dystrophy Association. She has taught beginning watercolor and given private lessons, and she is always busy painting and working on numerous art projects.
Visit her web site at www.karenwheeler.com
Artist statement written by Henderson artist, Karen Wheeler.
VSA
arts of Nevada