Talented Hands (And Tiny Ones, Too)
Photo courtesy of Karen Fincannon
Frequent readers of this column have learned that few art businesses follow a straight and narrow path. Nowhere is this truer than with my talented friend Karen Fincannon. As a child artist, she sold paper dolls she created on the school bus! In college, way before your phone was a camera, Karen was a photography major. She earned degrees in both photography and art history from the State University of New York, in Potsdam.
However, it was while she and her husband Paul were living in Michigan that Karen took a tile-making class at the famous Pewabic Pottery, in Detroit. She loved making relief tiles and never looked back. When she and Paul moved to the South to be closer to family, she took a workshop with Lana Wilson at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She claims it changed her entire relationship with clay, making it fun, expressive, and personally challenging.
The tiles and tile houses she now creates are intricate, bright, and happy. Most have patterned backgrounds and include her delightful animal shapes, as well as words and sayings. In addition to tiles, Karen is also busy creating a menagerie of chubby, playful animals. She makes colorful chickens flapping their wings, giraffes who are puppeteers, and cows in vintage bathing suits. The humor in her work is clear, too. See the giraffe photo here? Karen named it “Ursula Finds Her First Gray Hair!” You can see and purchase all her wonderful work at www.karenfincannon.com.
Like many artists today, Karen uses many channels to sell her work. On the wholesale side, she is on both the Faire and IndieMe websites and recently received an order for 125 pieces from the catalog Una Alla Volta. In warm weather, she does the Peachtree Road Farmers’ Market, where in addition to selling her work, she trades it for high-end veggies, soaps, and exotic eggs. She does fairs and festivals, including the Tennessee Craft Fairs in Nashville, the Dogwood Festival in Atlanta, and her favorite, the Kentuck Festival of the Arts, in Northport, Alabama.
Also, in a familiar pattern for artists, she drafts family members for help. When she is pressed with a large order, her studio becomes “the sweatshop” where her mom and dad are known to masterfully help glaze tiles and animals. Super hubby Paul does most of the heavy lifting, loading and unloading the kiln, packing, shipping, and of course, shlepping and setting up for art fairs.
As a side outlet, Karen loves painting and heartily wishes art shows would allow an artist to exhibit in more than one medium. And it’s not surprising that she is still very fond of photography, especially travel photography. In fact, she laughs as she points out that she makes and sells her ceramics so she and Paul can travel extensively.
And it is in practically all her travel photos where you can see a typical piece of Karen Fincannon whimsy. She highlights her photographs with “Tiny Hands” which she manipulates to “hold” great museum paintings, historic monuments, gigantic buildings, and delicious, exotic meals. She is even contemplating doing a travel book, full of photos from their world travels, each photo with the Tiny Hands highlighting the adventure. In Karen’s real world, she has a great eye and naturally talented hands. And oh, yes, there are always Tiny Hands lurking close by, too!
Photo courtesy of Karen Fincannon
Photo courtesy of Karen Fincannon
About the Author
Diane Sulg
Diane Sulg is Executive Director of CRAFT and founder & co-chair of American Craft Week (ACW). She is a handmade advocate that provides valuable information in her one-day seminars titled “All About Wholesale” at wholesale shows throughout the United States. Diane is the former owner of Maddi’s Gallery in Charlotte and Huntersville, N.C.