West Plains, MO. – The West Plains Council on the Arts (WPCA) and Ozarks Small Business Incubator (OzSBI) have partnered to bring quarterly art displays to the incubator. Local artist Karen Pitts’ works will be featured inside OzSBI’s first floor April 1 through the end of June 2022. Visitors may view the display at the incubator during OzSBI’s business hours, anytime between 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
“Karen’s ability to use the principles of design to create vibrant abstract paintings will assure the viewer of an exciting experience,” WPCA Coordinator Janey Hale said. “Though her works are abstractions they create a visual emotion that any art lover will appreciate.”
Pitts was born and raised in Oklahoma City. At a very young age, she knew she wanted to teach art. She attended Southwest Oklahoma Junior College, working towards an art degree. She, along with her family, moved to Willow Springs in 1989. Pitts returned to college to complete her schooling to teach in 2001 after raising her three girls. She graduated with a B.S. degree in History from Drury University in 2006. Karen started teaching art in 2007 for the Willow Springs School District and taught middle school art for thirteen years. Karen moved to West Plains in 2019 and is currently working at the West Plains High School teaching Studio One Art.
Pitts is the founder, owner, and operator of “Treat Your Palette” a business that opened in 2014, hosting painting parties in southern Missouri and Edmond, Oklahoma. “I love teaching, especially painting and painting techniques to adults and kids,” Pitts explained. “I love it that someone that had attended a painting party was able to go home and use those techniques to create their own painting… it is so rewarding.”
Pitts enjoys working with different art media: pencil, chalk pastels, charcoal, oil paint, oil and cold wax, and clay, but her favorite is using acrylics in the abstract style. “Abstracts for me is a way to express my mood onto canvas. Sometimes, I’ll have an image in my head and I can’t sleep until I put that image onto the canvas. I also love applying texture to my paintings, using hand-printed paper, model paste, and applying the paint heavy onto the canvas,” she explained. Today, you can find Karen in her home studio creating.
A Meet-the-Artist event will be held on Thursday, May 26, 2-4 p.m. in OzSBI’s lobby at 408 Washington Ave. in West Plains. The public is invited to attend, meet Pitts, view, and discuss the pieces on display.
For more information about the exhibit, contact Madison Hizer madisonhizer@ozsbi.com at OzSBI or WPCA Coordinator Janey Hale at jhale2129@gmail.com.
