The Art of Soil

Karen Vaughan is a scientist, paint maker, educator, mom, and artist. The soils she studies and learns from and with during her day job as an associate professor of pedology (the study of soil formation) have woven their way into her journey as an artist. Vaughan creates nature-inspired, soil-based watercolor paints that she uses to create art that communicates environmental challenges, conditions, and hopes of today. 

Using pigments gathered from nature and the laboratory, she creates work that interprets geologic time as expressed in the soil, sediment, coral, ice and other stratigraphic records.


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