Visiting Artist Series: Juliet Karelsen

Visiting Artist Series: Juliet Karelsen

The Visiting Artist Series in the Lunder Arts and Culture Gallery is designed to enrich CMTM’s arts education programming for children and their families, with a focus on using art as a lens to explore sustainability and our changing planet. From February 2022 to May 2023, the Visiting Artist Series will host several artists who call Maine home. The Artists will work with visitors to create communal works of art. 

Juliet Karelsen at the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine

An example of a collaborative project created during one of Juliet Karelsen’s workshops.

Visiting Artist Juliet Karelsen will assist visitors in creating a collaborative art sculpture  titled,  Lichens and Mosses: Eco Friends. During this art time, children and families will learn about the importance of lichens and mosses while making their own fiber-based "lichen and moss" art objects with recycled and up-cycled materials to be included on a collaborative paper-maché Community Rock. 

Schedule for Juliet Karelsen at the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine’s MakerSpace

Saturday, March 25, 2023

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM  Visiting Artist: Juliet Karelsen

Saturday, April 1, 2023

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM Visiting Artist: Juliet Karelsen

Saturday, April 29, 2023

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM Visiting Artist: Juliet Karelsen

All Visiting Artist programs are included with CMTM admission.


Juliet Karelsen Bio

Juliet Karelsen was trained as a painter at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Karelsen has been making eco-related fiber work since taking a stitching workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in 2015. In all its various forms and configurations, Karelsen's work cross-references painting, stitching, landscape, textile, miniature worlds, psychedelics, and science – from botany to mycology to planetary and solar – touching on the micro and macro scales. Based on observation of "the real," Karelsen makes work that has magical and fantastical elements. Through techniques such as embroidery, needle felting, cyanotype, printmaking, and quilting Karelsen creates descriptions of flowers, mosses, mushrooms, lichen, etc. The "artificial" materials used allude to human-created circumstances such as global warming and climate change while at the same time describing the magnificence of what is at stake. Karelsen has a long and varied background working with children, young adults, and families. Karelsen practiced Art Therapist from 1988-1995, which included a private practice in Farmington for the last four years. Karelsen has taught art-related classes (basic drawing, art in the classroom, art therapy) at Ohio State University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (teaching fellow), and the University of Maine at Farmington. Karelsen homeschooled her daughter from when she was 7 to 14 years old, teaching art, math, foreign languages, and history and creating fun and inspiring field trips and curriculums for her and other homeschoolers. Currently, Karelsen is involved with Hope Acts, which is an organization in Portland that helps asylum seekers and immigrants. Karelsen assists in the ESL classes and is involved with the Asylum Seeker Assistance Program which helps folks to access services and understand/complete documents. 

More About the Visiting Artist Series 

The Visiting Artist Series, which began in February 2022 and continues through May 2023, allows visitors to meet and create alongside artists who were chosen through a rigorous application and selection process. Over the course of several weeks, each Visiting Artist hosts “pop-up studios” in MakerSpace. Each artist works in a different medium, supplies base materials, and leads art-making activities where visitors help to produce communal works of art.

Visiting Artist programs promote engagement with the transformative power of the arts and provide meaningful opportunities for children to explore identity, foster creativity, and develop critical life skills essential for healthy development. 

In addition to the generous funding of the Lunder Arts & Culture Gallery by The Lunder Foundation,  the Visiting Artist Series is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ProgramsCommunications OfficeVisiting Artist Series, Juliet Karelsen, free with admission, MakerSpace