“In my childhood they were my escape. I traveled the world through books. I still love to touch them and smell them." Karen’s work is an archaeological exploration into the structure and content of the book. Her goal is to transform how a book functions, removing it from its familiar construction and reinterpreting it as new and visually meaningful. Karen Hawkins is a contemporary sculptor based in Austin, Texas. She creates meaningful pieces of art by reviving old books, resource materials, and paper ephemera. The digital age began replacing the traditional book with e-readers, rendering the centuries-old form as a mere object. As an artist, Karen’s goal is to push the objectification of books further, discovering whether they can remain purposeful in our technological age. The resulting sculptures evoke a sense of nostalgia that each person relates to in their own personal way, based on their life experiences with books. As our studio clientele has expanded across the country, we continue to explore and discover new ways to examine this centuries-old form.