Karen Ryer began her journey into the heart of stone in 1999, creating mostly from Oregon soapstone, which is plentiful, inexpensive, easy to work, and incredibly beautiful when finished. Click on CLASSES to learn much more about the wonders of soapstone, and studying with the artist. She eventually began work in alabaster, moving on to marble in her most recent work. She studied marble carving in Carrara, Italy with Jerrold Ballaine and Manuel Neri, and continues her marble studies here with Ante Marinovic.
She has been shown in several galleries locally, and submitted many pieces to various shows around Northern California, all of which have been successfully juried in. For five years Karen has consistently sold most of the pieces that she sculpts. Her work has been purchased by collectors from all over the country, from Eastern Canada to Hawaii.
Her passion for her stone and the lack of galleries that give adequate attention to stone sculpture these days, she had to open her own gallery. Thus, Withywindle Gallery, a wondrous place in the Russian River town of Guerneville, north of San Francisco, opened at the end of November 2004. The gallery is an environment in which Karen can effectively and beautifully display her own work as well as the wonderful work of other artists in stone who have had trouble finding a place to show.
After nearly thirty years as a practicing lawyer in California (Alameda, San Francisco, and Sonoma Counties), Karen Ryer retired from law to pursue stone sculpture. An art history buff, she studied art as an avocation, painted, dabbled in clay, wood, found objects, metal, and finally met her first stone. It was love at first slice. She has since never met a stone she didn't like.