Karen Paust - Bead and Button Magazine

natural
treasure
With a background in botany, artist
Karen Paust
set out to bead every plant
and insect that crossed her path
by Pam O’Connor
Photo by John Klunk

As I enter a driveway in rural Pennsylvania, I’m uncertain
whether I’ve found the right place, since I can’t see a
house. As I proceed, a rabbit scuttles in front of my car
and hops down the center of the driveway, over a rise, and
into a wooded hollow, where I find Karen Paust’s house.
Before
Paust’s two-year
hiatus from
beading, she
was working on
moths. This year
she picked up
where she left
off, completing
two tiger moths.

Creative childhood
Painting, drawing, knitting, papermaking,
sewing, ceramics,
gardening, cooking: You’d be hardpressed
to find a creative pursuit
that isn’t part of Paust’s repertoire.
Our conversation wanders over granola
recipes, hunting for morels, and
starting plants from seed before we
settle down to the topic at hand:
how she became a beader.
“I’ve always been a creative
person,” says Paust. “I made doll
clothes when I was six. All I wanted
Paust’s mobile titled Pond
features five distinctly different
goldfish suspended from actual
roots and vines. Five insects,
including two dragonflies,
hover above the fish.
Photo by T.E. Crowley
to do as a child was make things.”
Paust’s urge to create was nurtured
by her mother and grandmother.
Their ability to sew, knit, and spin
was vital to their survival in a
destitute East German town during
and after World War II.
Such austerity wasn’t part of
Paust’s childhood, but it’s evident
she takes great pride in and even
inspiration from the self-reliance
and resourcefulness that sustained
her relatives through hard times.
Discovering her artistry
“When I left for college, I had never
had any art classes,” she says. “I
was studying botany at Purdue
University, and I enrolled in a basic
design class for fun. That class
changed everything. I just loved it. I
realized that every time I looked
through the microscope at cells, I
was more interested in the colors
and shapes and doing the drawings
than in the scientific aspects.”
Paust went home and told her
parents that she had to go to art
school. She enrolled in summer art
classes so she could assemble a portfolio
and was accepted at the Maryland
Institute College of Art.
“When I got there, I had all my
academic requirements finished, so
all I had to do was draw and paint
for three-and-a-half years,” she says.
Beads become her medium
After graduation, Paust got a job in
a gallery in York, Pennsylvania.
Making a living as an artist was a
struggle, but her frugal lifestyle led
her to beads. “I couldn’t afford to
buy jewelry, so I bought beads to
make myself simple earrings,” she
recalls. “I played around with the
beads and realized they fit together
like cells. I saw that I could make
anything I wanted. Without knowing
what I was doing, I taught myself
peyote stitch.”
At that point in the early 1980s,
there were no books to consult or
beading classes to take, so Paust
improvised through trial and error,
intuiting the stitches. She says, “It’s
worked to my advantage that I
wasn’t exposed to conventional
jewelry making and beading. I just
jumped in with what I knew about
cellular and molecular structure.”
When she wore her jewelry creations,
people asked her where she
had bought them, so she started to
sell her work in stores and galleries.
But she really wanted to make beaded
paintings. “I was interested in
making large pieces that light could
shine through,” she says. This desire
also inspired her to make mobiles.
116 Bead&Button | beadandbutton.com

“I love my mobiles. They are my
favorite things,” says Paust. It’s no
wonder Paust is partial to them.
With creations so lifelike, they only
need the animation of a breeze to
complete the illusion.
“As an artist, I don’t really categorize
myself,” she says. “For me, it
is important to explore all types of
mediums and be open to evolving. I
keep a journal to sketch and write
down poems, dreams, and ideas,
which can materialize into beaded
pieces, paintings, sculptures, knitted
sculptures, or wearable pieces.”
>> In the neckpiece Autumnal
Equinox, the elements are so
lifelike that the sunflower
dazzles even when viewed from
the back. Paust doesn’t stint
on the flower’s sepals any more
than she would on its petals.
Photo by T.E. Crowley
Across the country and back
Looking to expand her horizons,
Paust moved to Santa Barbara,
California, in 1988. “I wanted an
adventure,” she says. “But it was
difficult being an artist in Southern
California. I had three jobs to pay
the rent and very little time to work
on my beading.”
Then, a wildfire swept through
her neighborhood, and Paust lost
everything. All her beadwork went
up in smoke, except five pieces she
had sent to be photographed for
publication.
Word got out through Alice
Scherer’s beading newsletter about
Paust’s ordeal. No sooner had the
item appeared than Paust began
receiving packages of beads. “It was
like Christmas,” she recalls. “For
months afterwards I received small
parcels and encouraging notes.”
Despite the support, it was time
to return to Pennsylvania. With
more time to focus on her beadwork,
she received more recognition.
Her carefully wrought pieces
attracted collectors, and the Mobilia
Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and Julie Artisans’ Gallery in
New York began to represent her.
In her studio
We’ve finished our tea, and Paust
invites me down to her studio. A tall
cabinet holds a splendid assortment
of beads, ordered by hue. There are
pots of crochet and knitting needles,
jars of buttons, even a container of
cast-off beaded insects, leaves, and
Of her Spring
in the Woods
neckpiece, Paust
says, “On a springtime hike, I
came across a Luna moth that had
just emerged from its cocoon and
was drying its wings. I thought it
would be challenging to bead a
neckpiece with the moth and the
early-spring flowers that were blooming.”
flowers that didn’t make the cut. She
dumps them out and sorts through
them, pointing out what failing
made her abandon each one.
Paust then demonstrates her
favorite way to bead: standing up
with her beadwork perched on a
chin-high windowsill.
“It’s the most comfortable way
for me to work because the beads
are right at eye level and the light is
good,” she explains, laughing a bit
because of how unusual it looks.
A few of her bead paintings hang
on the wall, and I stop to admire one.
Photo by T.E. Crowley
>> In Trying to Root, a surreal figure – half woman, half
carrot – is planted among common plants – sunflower, thistle,
thorn apple, morning glory, wisteria, and beet. Paust uses a
pointillist command of the color spectrum in this portrayal,
dappling the carrot woman’s skin with purple, red, and green.
“I love beads because they are the
perfect medium to illustrate the way
the universe is made of tiny bits of
energy,” she says. I’d venture that
Paust’s studio buzzes with such
energy. After a joyful farewell, I
leave Paust to return to the moth or
wherever her boundless creative
energy leads. w
Contact Karen Paust in care of
Bead&Button, or visit her website,
www.karenpaust.com, scheduled to
debut in early September. Contact
Pam O’Connor at pampal@msn.com.
Photo by T.E. Crowley
beadandbutton.com | October 2006 117

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