Carolyn graduated from Iowa State University in 1967, with a degree in Applied Art Education with an emphasis on fine crafts. Upon
graduation she bought a small floor loom. She taught art in Seward, Nebraska until moving to Iowa City, Iowa in 1970. She was a
member of the weaving and spinning group that was part of the Iowa City Craft Guild. She moved to Brainerd in 1974. In 1979 her
interests expanded to include quilting. She has studied hand dyeing and surface design with Jan Myers-Newbury, Nancy Halpern, Laura
Murray, Claire Benn, Leslie Morgan and Kerr Grabowski, and has studied design with art quilters Michael James and Nancy Crow.
Lately, I have been working in three areas: shibori, whole cloth surface design, and paper
lamination. Regarding surface-design works...most of which are deconstructed screen printing. For this technique, thickened dye is silk-screened over a textured surface to create an image on the screen. The dye is allowed to dry on the screen. The screen is placed over the fabric to be printed and either thickened dye or the thickener is pulled across the screen with a squeegee. Some of the moistened dye is released from the screen. The screen is moved to a different position on the fabric and another print is made. Since the dye is being removed from the screen, each print is different from the one before.
Carolyn’s studio is in Brainerd, Minnesota. Carolyn’s designs have been published in “Better Homes and Gardens”, “American Quilter”
and "Quilting Arts" magazines and the book, Creative Quilting, The Journal Quilt Project Book, a book about the journal quilts that have
hung at the International Quilt Festivals in Houston and Chicago. Her quilts have hung in the Fine Arts Building at the Minnesota State
Fair, “Tactile Architecture” in Washington, D.C., "Form Not Function" in New Albany, Indiana, and a number of regional exhibits.