Me

I make art. I teach art. I meditate and do yoga. I love deeply. I walk and swim in nature. I give and receive.

I try to put these things before all else.

Artist Statement

We make art to see and feel the world. We dance, sing, write. I use image.

It has been my interpreter, my lifeline, my center. I have lived a life of crossing culture again and again. Into absolute change: scents, textures, colors, flavors, language, ritual, religion.

Shift. Find. Shift. Look. Shift. Find what is true.

My work takes time, uses time, plays with time.

In this click, click, disposable, package and call it real time in history….

I create layer upon layer of pattern, texture, and color. Images coming out of nature’s shapes and order, out of culture, memory, myth. Searching for structure down to a cellular level, allowing materials to drip, find their path, as I have found mine. Form weaving in and out of randomness. Realistic pushing through abstract. Pieces stitched in composition.

Turn, organize, rip, re-organize, burn, blow on, scratch, draw, douse in color, look for meaning, for balance, for a stopping point.
But where it stops must be beautiful. It is the artists duty to leave an offering of beauty, to create meaning…even if it is just how a painting finally sits right and true. This process creates an altar of sanity in this disconnected world.
I am mesmerized by this process and what will reveal itself, when I whole heartedly show up again and again and again.

Kathryn Birkholm
Stendis, 2023

C.V.

1969 Born, Nashua NH

1971 Raised in a Hippy Collective, Back-woods Tennessee

• Influenced by nature, not middle class America

1991 Bachelor Fine Arts in Painting, Cooper Union University

• Cooper Union is in East Village, NYC. Highly competitive school.
  Unlike most American Universities, it is entirely free.
  In NYC, emersed in New York’s galleries and museums
• Exchange: Kenya, junior year. Fell deeply in love with travel and other cultures. Made art manically, desperately to understand where I was, who I was.

1991-1995 artist model/ struggling artist in NYC/San Francisco

• My art in small group shows. One-man show at a gallery in SF. Information/ galleries are now gone. So long ago, we sent slides
• Very serious about my work and just successful enough to buy materials and have the time to paint

1996 Certified K-12 Art Teacher, Franklin Pierce University, NH

1996-1998 Peace Corps Volunteer, Ghana

• Taught deaf children art. Learned sign language.
  Deepened visual language with colors/ patterns of Africa.
  Made sculpture out of juju (witchcraft) articles.
• Made art in my huge studio. No electricity. No phones. No computers. No time limits. Deep dive into the creative process. Priceless.

1999-2001 Art teacher, Rowland Hall Private School, Utah

• Full-time art teacher, kindergarden-6th grade.
  Fell in love with teaching and the raw creativity of children.
  Made my own art. Climbed and painted the mountains.
• Ran private art camps in the summer
• Sold everything and bought a one-way ticket to India

2002-2003 India

• Sketched constantly, caught in crazy web of religion, history, culture which is India. My work incorporated Hindu stories, Indian fabric, sewing, collage, and drawing with paint. Used art to find center and deeper truths
• Showed art made in India at yoga studios and galleries in Oakland, CA. Sold most of it

2003-2005 Starving Artist

• 3 part-time jobs, no health insurance, barely making rent, but a big studio and serious commitment to create.
• Participated in open studios, some work in small shows at small galleries in East Bay and SF. Sold enough to keep going

2005-2006 Camp Rising Sun, Denmark

• Taught art to teenage girls from all over world
• Fell in love with a Dane

2007-2020 (Covid) Teacher, Mother, Artist

• Creativity divided between the three above
• Art on back burner, but always warm

2020-Present

• It is now. I’m all in
• Starting art career again, as if a beginner: Group shows in local galleries, open studios, online marketing for artist courses.
• Fully committed to my creative process and to bringing it full circle: showing and selling my work