Karen is the person behind Harlequin Arts, an artist- educator, inspired by her faith to celebrate colour, nature and the wonderfully miraculous everyday, both through her own art practice & in enabling creativity in and for others.
• Create prayerful art that inspires and uplifts others.
• Provide arts and wellbeing in a variety of sectors – enabling others to create using a variety of media ranging from collage, print, paint, textiles, and more.
• Lead retreats & quiet days in a variety of venues that enable others to meet with God through creativity.
• Design creative prayer resources from original art that others can use creatively for ministry or that can inspire their own personal faith journey.
We are an East Midlands creative business providing participatory arts workshops and training, inspiring and enabling others to create. We will work with you to ensure that we deliver sessions just right for your group.
All workshops are planned especially for you and led by Karen Herrick.
Many moons ago, Karen dreamed of being an artist, but as the saying goes ‘A dream without a plan is just a wish.’
So, after a creative childhood led to pursuing the arts through a foundation course, practicalities deemed that she chose a more sensible route to train as a teacher rather than following the dream of being an artist.
Adult life happens quickly, and before she knew it, having taught many hundreds of children in schools, and spending several years creatively sharing the Gospel in ministry as a Children’s & Community Worker-over half her life had passed by… and she still seemed no nearer to that illusive dream of being an artist, despite finding creative outlets in studying a Creative Textiles Diploma, and bringing up her own children in a creative environment.
However, artists see things differently, as does God, who with a different perspective, pulls together disparate ingredients to create something entirely new….
"We are all artists, created to create"
In 2007, Karen decided it was about time she tried to “be an artist”, for “If not now, when?” so applied for creative business training. Soon afterwards, several local opportunities emerged to deliver arts and wellbeing in schools and elsewhere, with older people. Hesitantly she applied and was amazed to be chosen for both jobs. With the thought that if things didn’t work out, she could always return to teaching, she threw herself into learning how to be a freelance artist, with the support of Philip as finance & business advisor.
Many years later, Karen is still amazed to be following her dream, where skills in art, teaching, creative ministry, spiritual accompaniment, organisation & planning all blend together in a unique way, to enable her to live life as a freelance artist-educator, creating prayerful art and enabling others in many walks of life to experience connections through creativity for themselves. She’s still learning as she travels but wouldn’t have it any other way.
