Karen Kliethermes

Karen had a blast live painting for this non-profit's fundraising event! The Alliance for Human Animal Coexistence (IHAC) invited Karen to create a special piece honoring the incredible work that they do, and to raise funds! :)

This organization works to educate the Kenyan community about the local ecology around them at their environmentally-friendly built school/community space. More specifically, farmers are taught that sunflowers are a crop that elephants do not like the taste of--a recently discovered revelation!! Therefore, the elephants don't ravage the farmers' fields, and the elephants don't subsequently get shot/injured/killed because of that. Sunflowers are also a pollinator favorite, and supports many local species of insects. (In the foreground of the painting, I include an African Golden Arab butterfly, one of Kenya's gorgeous butterflies). To learn more about and/or donate to this cause: https://www.humananimalcoexistence.org/

Karen put about fifteen hours of painting work in before showing up to complete the piece in-person. The painting was then auctioned off to raise funds for this non-profit. This is the type of work that fills Karen with joy and fulfillment. She feels very grateful to know the extraordinary people who have created non-profits like these that offer the opportunity for her to raise money for the causes she care about via her skillset and time instead of direct funds. Also, another shoutout and much gratitude to Karen's dear friend Ricky for helping her vend her table of limited products (that IHAC was kind enough to allow her to bring and sell) and take pictures while she was live painting.