Kelli Lien is a visual artist; a painter, book artist, and collagist.  

 

Her love of art began as a young child.  She has painted routinely since pre-adolescence.  Kelli always enrolled in art classes.  While in her early 20's and working,  she found time to focus on batik and also calligraphy.  Later, as a mother of two young sons, and living in Rapid City, SD, she aspired to learn to paint in watercolor.  She spent years learning, from local, regional, and some internationally known watercolorists. She also learned from books.  From time invested, she considers herself primarily self-taught.  Kelli has been an award winning watercolorist for over 20 years, earning top regional awards.  She is a signature member of the Red River Watercolor Society.

 

Her years in Rapid City found her taking part in local artist groups and exhibitions, and taking the occasional big painters' workshop, i.e., John Salminen.   She taught watercolor to adults and children in a variety of venues, including the fine arts center, senior centers, elementary schools, and private lessons in her home studio.

 

Kelli and her family relocated to northwestern Minnesota in 2015, after having spent 25 years in the Black Hills of SD.   In 2017, she received the Artist Fellowship Award, presented by the Region 2 Arts Council, in Bemidji.  Kelli is also an Enrolled Member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

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The pandemic ended up being an unforeseen opportunity for learning.  Her previous love of calligraphy brought her to discovering the book arts genre.  The major book arts centers, as well as other artistic entities, began to offer both live and recorded workshops online.  With only one class left to take, Kelli will receive her Core Certificate in Book Arts from the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) in spring 2024. 

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She is also a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT).  

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Artist Statement:  I am an artist by nature and possess a daily need to be creative.  I happily work among a variety of mediums and genres, in both two and three dimensions, in projects both large and very small. 

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