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Arts Walk cover features spring mosaic

Artist evokes a fresh feeling in key piece for celebration

By Linda Tarr | For The Olympian • Published April 26, 2007

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Vibrant colors that evoke feelings of spring grace the cover of this year's Arts Walk guide, thanks to local artist Jennifer Kuhns.

Kuhns wanted the mood and color scheme of springtime to reflect the timing of the event, which occurs Friday and Saturday.

"I was thinking about it being the time to pick fresh herbs and things," she said. "I felt it really came together well."

The mosaic artist creates pieces using glass, tile and other materials.

"I'm really excited about it because it looks really great," said Erin Conine, arts and events program specialist for the Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation Department. "It's very vibrant, has a lot of color."

She said the city prides itself on having a diverse collection of art pieces, and this piece is unlike any others in the repertoire.

"This is something completely different," she said.

Kuhns was chosen by a jury that reviewed 34 applicants. She gets her materials from art classes, friends in the construction business who end up with extra tile, display boards from stores, and other places.

"When students in glass classes make mistakes, the glass is scrapped," she said of the glass she picks up.

Kuhns said she's done art as long as she can remember, but for a long time saw it as a hobby. She's done drawings, oils, pastels, ceramics, jewelry and other mediums.

But in 2000, Kuhns discovered mosaics and was hooked.

"One thing I like is it's ... almost therapeutic in taking something and busting it and breaking it and tearing it apart and piecing it together into something that is whole," she said, describing the finished forms as luminescent.

The designs she naturally tends toward did not render as well in other mediums as in mosaics, Kuhns added.

"When I'm doing designs, they tend to come naturally," she said. "Sometimes I go back to old drawings from a time when I was able to be an avid journal keeper and sketchbook keeper - when I had leisure time to sit and draw."

Kuhns has a 4-year-old daughter, and parenting makes it tough to spend long hours on such pastimes, she said. But motherhood also inspired her to take what she saw as a hobby and make it into a career. She tried working part-time after having her daughter, but discovered that even jobs with flexible hours required a lot of money for child care, cutting down her take-home pay to less than $300 a month.