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Karen Ireland / / a r e n Ireland is a glass, mosaic and mural artist. She Is M / I a woman of conviction and activism, also a certified teacher, enabler and world traveller. "Potential is her favourite word. "I love a challenge" and "seek simplicity while practicing complexity." In her work and her life, she explores problems, seeks solutions and finds ways to get things done. Karen enjoys making personal space more personal and helping people realize their dreams. She uses "found objects" and transforms them. Glass becomes three dimensional. A vase becomes butterfly wings, antique glasses become trees. Lamps and illuminations are "sometimes elegant, often crazy and almost always experimental." On glass, cityscapes are etched on windows or mirrors, dragons sprawl across ceilings. Mosaics magically transform broken cups, pieces of wood or glass, rearranged and glued down. "I love working with people in the community to create art that they can take ownership of." Installations include John Braithwaite Community Centre project on violence against women. Wall paintings of horses and balloons, have changed people's lives in a group home. The Lookout Emergency Aid Shelter recently unveiled art work conceived and created by residents and guided by Karen, over a two year period. In the Lower Mainland she teaches private and group multimedia classes. Within her studio, fragile porcelain tea cups hang in clusters on hooks, a mirror lies in transition, a Bell kiln takes pride of place. Karen loves when people find her in the phone book and call ot leave boxes of old china or glass on the doorstep. "Everything comes back to glass" she says. It is liquid never solid, always moving and changing, opaque, translucent, light, dark, etched and leaded, Karen is very excited about her new expressions and experiments with "warm" glass. Karen wrote a book once telling her own personal story. In her artwork she tells new and challenging stories, mostly reflected in transformed glass. By Joyce Geeäivin I INFO: Tel: 604.980.3264 · E-mail: ¡reburg@shaw.ca Top - Stained glass - "Irises" Far Left - "Poppy" - Fused glass, self-supporting Middle - "Forest" Bottom - "Dragon Head" 14 January|February M l