MEET KARIS HESS
Textile and Mixed Media Artist
My earliest memory of making something was a construction paper headdress at age four. A crayon drawing at age five is still in a family scrapbook and informed a quilt pattern and technique decades later. Suffice it to say, glue, paper, thread, fabric, and paint have been inseparable companions ever since childhood.
I am a local self-taught textile and mixed media artist whose work spans printmaking, collage, gelli plate printing, thread sketching, quilting, fabric surface design, needle arts, jewelry making, and more. Beautiful materials and the urge to transform them are, frankly, an occupational hazard. My creative inspiration lives in my photography album — an ever-growing collection of textures, patterns, landscapes, nature, and architecture gathered from a life spent traveling with wide-open eyes. At last count: over 30,000 images, and counting.
After closing my business, The Modern Sewist & Creative Studio, I found myself with the dangerous luxury of time on my hands — which, for an artist, is less a rest and more an invitation. I am currently building a new body of work rooted in printmaking, collage, and fabric surface design, and the studio has never been busier.
In addition to my quilty life, I am also a professionally trained chef — creativity of the food variety, and inspiration in its own right. Above all, I am a decades-long educator, and the through-line has always been the same: make things, and show others how. There is no greater reward than watching a student discover something they didn't know they were capable of.
I am thrilled to bring textile arts to Art Center Sarasota, and to share the techniques that currently live at the center of my own practice.
Follow along my creative journey: @themodernsewist on Instagram