I consider myself a student of life and learn more from what I presently see-hear-feel than from anything I could ever read in a book. I am particularly drawn to the natural world, for the wisdom it holds and reveals if one is willing to listen. Poignant childhood experiences of creeks, lakes, and rivers in Wisconsin and rural Oklahoma are fluid terrain of my inner heartscape; sun, moon, stars and old growth trees angelic presence. Red rock outcroppings and loamy earth carpeted with moss and pine needles, my witness.

As a child I grew up with constant but subtle lessons in spatial and haptic awareness. My mother’s first college degree was in architectural engineering, my father’s advanced degree in physics. While lessons were not overt, spatial principles inherent to architecture and physics pervaded our daily life, be it in the arrangement of furniture, planning of a garden or a road trip. Both my parents are gifted in various skilled handcrafts. My fondest familial memories include watching my mother sew my clothes, and my father work wood, building a sailboat that would eventually expand my view past riverbank and shoreline. Spatial awareness became a second language for me. I grew adept at seeing the relationship of things in space, and the movement of things through space. The practice of skilled handcraft—be it sewing, embroidery, carpentry, pottery, bookbinding, paper making, etc.—all become practices in haptic awareness, a practice in which one aligns the mind with the hands in space, just as one aligns the mind, breath and body during meditation.

My experiences as a formal student include a liberal arts education at Lawrence University, where I earned a BA with honors in religious philosophy and studied art as a minor emphasis, learning drawing and sculpture from Arthur Thrall and Rolf Westphal, respectively.  I pursued graduate studies at The University of Iowa, earning first an MA in theology and ethics with special emphasis on the work of Paul Ricoeur (hermeneutic phenomenology and narrative theory), and then completed the graduate Certificate program at The Center For The Book. My training within the Center afforded me the opportunity to study with a wide variety of international crafts people and artists. Within this community I learned significant principles of design, papermaking, letterpress printing, with emphasis in historical book structures and materiality. During this era I was deeply influenced by such mentors and colleagues as Timothy Barrett, Jim Croft, Cheryl Jacobsen, Martha Little, Gaylord Shanilec, David Wolske, Larry Yerkes, as well as the people and collections of The Iowa Women’s Archives. For twelve years I served as the Assistant Rare Book Conservator at the University of Iowa Libraries under Head Conservator, Gary Frost. I also taught bookbinding, book arts, and book studies classes as Adjunct Faculty within the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History and the School of Library and Information Science. Some of my students were my greatest teachers. 

My life and work are informed by a diversity of artists and craftsmen: Ruth Asawa, Andy Goldsworthy, Robert Irwin, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Agnes Martin, Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O'Keeffe, Odilon Redon and Grant Wood. I am inspired and sustained by anonymous craft traditions that invest in slow process and imbue the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi:  carpentry, garden and architectural design, natural dying, paper making, and most specifically folk textile stitch work and embroidery practices from around the world. These artists and traditions evoke experiences for me that evoke quiet patience, that explore our innate awareness, an indeterminate softness, light/shadow, interconnectedness, impermanence and ultimately sense of place.

In recent years I completed Land Ethics Leadership training through the Aldo Leopold Foundation and certification in "Trans-disciplinary Approaches to the Wicked Problem of Climate Change" through Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The realities of Climate Change and global environmental problems, particularly water issues and gender equity, are now a primary catalyst for my creative work. 

Native to Wisconsin, I live on the unceded sacred ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk (today known as Vernon County in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin), where I am a humble and devoted steward to over 8 acres that are part of the Mississippi River Watershed and Flyway. When not in the studio, I might be working on the land restoring native prairie and woodland or collecting bird species data as a citizen scientist. When not in the studio or on the land, I am in meditation retreat. I enjoy a quiet life away from urban centers and social media; you will not find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or the like, but I do keep a simple youtube channel where I occasionally post fledgling ambient field recordings of the Upper Mississippi River.

I am not prolific, but intentional in the sharing of my work. I tend to exhibit something every few years and occasionally write on topic for a cause. To learn more, please visit mere appearances to see my collection, exhibition, publication history and a summary of my specialized training in art, craft and intentional living.

Also, please visit my statement on the practice of ahimsa within my creative work and life.

All content (image and writings) copyright Kirstin Alana Baum, 2022.