Karen was inspired to create the stained glass piece using
blue dog-toothed amethyst after reading Why Water Plants Don't Drown by Victoria Sullivan and discovering the lovely
illustration for the Pickerel Weed rendered by Susan Elliott, artist and co-editor
of Pinyon Publishing.
In the text accompanying the glass work, Karen explains that
no blue stone felt right for the flowers, so she chose the dog-toothed amethyst
to represent them. She attributes qualities of spirituality and contentment to
the amethyst and relates that it has calming, protective powers of healing,
divine love, and inspiration and that it enhances psychic and creative
abilities. We have hung this art that represents "the peace of the perfect
peace which was present prior to birth" in the sunroom and can look out
and see it each morning at breakfast time.
I always enjoy the texts that accompany Karen's work as they
are small inspirational pieces she chooses to use in her interpretations of
objects in nature and the personalities who commission the work, as well as to
foster creativity in those who acquire the glass work. She is married to the
poet Darrell Bourque, and they're well suited to each other because she matches
his gift for writing poetry with her visual poems in glass.
Karen has done glass pieces for many homes throughout
Acadiana, for the Louisiana Book Festival, for the Ernest Gaines Center at the University
of Louisiana at Lafayette and other art centers. Much of her work focuses on
the natural world and spirituality—on those images that give meaning and
harmony to human experience.
We now have five of Karen's glass pieces, three of which are
at Sewanee. One of the more recent pieces is a rendition of a porch that was
photographed and appeared on the cover of Porch Posts, a collection of essays and stories
that I co-authored with Janet Faulk this year. I will be autographing this book
at A&E Gallery in New Iberia Saturday, Dec. 13, 1 - 3 p.m., along with
Vickie Sullivan who is debuting her sequel to the speculative novel Adoption entitled Rogue Genes.
Porch Posts' cover is Karen's interpretation
of a painting done by the late Elmore Morgan, Jr. which shows the bare outlines
of a porch open to the air that might have been a place to sit and watch the
sunset and fireflies winking on a summer night.
Karen handles commissions for glass work created in her
studio in Church Point, Louisiana, and if you're interested in her work, she
can be reached at 337-684-3542 or 337-351-2219.
Photograph of the Pickerel
Weed by Victoria I. Sullivan, author of Why
Water Plants Don't Drown, Adoption,
and Rogue Genes.
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