Karen E Goulet, White Earth Ojibwe Nation/Métis – Artist, writer, community organizer, educator, daughter, mother, sister

Karen E Goulet is an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation. She is also from Métis, Saami, and Finnish people.  She was raised to honor the beauty of the natural world while at the same time was taught to speak the truth and stand up for what she believed in. She believes that art can change the world and supports and honors the efforts of those who are working to make a difference through creative means. Karen received her BA from The Evergreen State College in Fine Arts and Cultural Education, her MFA in Sculpture from The University of Wisconsin – Madison, and her MEd from University of Minnesota Duluth.   She is an artist, poet, educator and community organizer who is fiercely committed to bringing visibility and voice to marginalized realities. She remembers the struggles of those who came before her and does what she can to make opportunities for those who will come next.

Karen was in residence at A Studio in the Woods through the Big River Continuum Residency a Special Collaboration with University of Minnesota’s Itasca Biological Station and Weisman Art Museum. This program cultivates creative exchanges connecting communities of the Mississippi River from the Headwaters to the Delta.

“The horizon lines of the Ojibwe homelands are everything to me. Formed by the foliage whose roots clutch the soil shaped by rivers and lakes defines this landscape in a very particular way. They create the stage for sunrises that capture my breathe and sunsets that carry my heart west to where my family landed. Their color and light follow my thoughts everywhere.

I come from people who are makers…of beauty, change, culture, and possibility. The histories of my people are immeshed with the life of the plants that shelter and sustain us. Rivers and lakes form and inform the stories I make as they remember the ones who came before me. Always near the water, from legends to photographs, the waters have directed the migration of my family. It was the water that carried us to new lives and places. Our world-views have been influenced by traditional culture, historical trauma, and a fierce will to survive, along with an ephemeral love for life and the world we live in.” – Karen E Goulet