Meet the Artists in Residence @Fogue

I AM a salvage artist. My style of collage, my aesthetic, is much like a historian or archaeologist, to preserve what I unearth. I love the ancient, I swoon over beautiful penmanship and old love letters. There’s a deep connection I feel to the past, to the person who penned the letter, the faces in a photograph, the beauty and the decay. 

Bits of ephemera, some centuries apart, are combined through folding, tearing, layering and peeling back, exposing an identity lost and creating a new history. To give them a further feeling of permanence and stop any decaying, encaustic medium (beeswax and damar resin) is added and unexpected details emerge.

The Japanese word, mottainai, meaning ‘too good to waste,’ was used to describe boro fabric: textiles that have been mended and patched over and over. This resonated with me, so every scrap of antique paper or vintage fabric is saved until it finds a home in my art. I also feel the importance of using the original materials, not copies, to lend authenticity to myself and the voice I’m hoping to bring to the original owner of the document.

Bio:

Colleen is a Seattle-based artist working with found and salvaged vintage and antique materials for assemblage and collage art as well as encaustic painting. Her paintings and assemblage art has been published in art books and she has shown throughout the Northwest, France and Scotland.

She balances her work between her home studio in Magnolia and her studio at Fogue Studios and Gallery in the Georgetown neighborhood where she teaches encaustic painting. 

Find Colleen's Available Works Here

 Artist Statement

As I move my inky brush on the paper, watching it react to the paper is endlessly fascinating. Whether it's Xuan, Mulberry or Bamboo paper, each will play with the ink differently. There are challenges and surprises each time I work.

Sumi-e originated from Japan many centuries ago, and continues to inspire contemporary artists today. It's a medium of finding the poetry in your subject, expressing vitality and feeling is key.

Having painted in pastel and oil for 30 years. It wasn't until I picked up a Sumi brush that I learned the best thing about making a painting. That getting it right is more about letting go.

Artist Statement

My mission is to support the evolution of souls through my art—to invite anyone who encounters it to swim in the depths of their own being, perhaps get lost there for a while, in both the work and themselves. 

I aim to evoke reflection, curiosity, and sometimes confusion. I welcome discomfort as a portal. If the viewer feels unsettled, or if a piece lingers in their thoughts, I consider it a success. My work is meant to stir something unseen.

I believe these creations already exist in some energetic form; I merely persuade them into visibility as I play. I am inspired by all of human existence—but especially by emotion. 

My practice deliberately spans many artistic styles and mediums, both physical and digital—whatever is necessary (and fun!) to express what passes through me. I often work in intuitive flow states, allowing the pieces to lead. Some works take months or even years to complete. My process is never linear; I return to pieces only when called. 

My physical art is an exploration of “what-ifs,” letting materials show me how they want to be seen. The results are often highly textural, topographical, or abstract mixed-media pieces. My digital works blend drawing, painting, photography, fractals, and video—oftenleaning towards surrealism and figurative expression, with a dark but sparkly aura. 

Sometimes, my artwork is simply the flow of energy made visible.

The most important thing is the joy I feel while creating. Art has brought profound healing into my life—and that, above all, is the gift I wish to share.

Bio

Sonja Joy is a self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist whose creative path has unfolded across code, construction, and clairvoyance. 

Her first career as a software developer honed her ability to translate the abstract into structured form—an alchemy of logic and imagination. Her second chapter, as a real estate investor and remodeler, deepened that skill as she restored neglected apartment buildings into vibrant, livable homes—merging economics with heart-led design and a meaningful impact on people. 

After the birth of her twins in 2015, Sonja experienced a profound personal shift and began pursuing art in earnest. What began as personal expression evolved into a public offering in 2021, when she entered the NFT space and began selling her work digitally and internationally. Her work is now also collected in physical form.

Sonja’s work spans physical and digital mediums, drawing from emotion, intuition, and nonlinear creation. Whether working in her home studio, as a Resident Artist at Fogue Studios & Gallery, or wandering in unseen realms, her creations act as mirrors, invitations, and energetic transmissions for those willing to look beyond the surfaceant to know too much about what I am doing. I would rather fumble, stumble and play with line, form and color relationships where I emphasize creativity over skills.
I am at my best as an artist when I collaborate rather than try to control my materials, and if I’m lucky a language develops between me and my work. I don’t always know where I’m going but trust that I’ll get there. My practice of making art is also a vehicle for tapping onto a deeper consciousness that where I can step outside of my day-to-day reality and shake hands with the unknown.
 

Experimentation, spontaneity and curiosity are my guides, passion is my fuel.

Sonja's available work

 Artist Statement

As an artist with a background in life drawing, graphic journalism, design and illustration, I love to tell open-ended visual stories. Through drawing, collage, painting, found objects assemblage and encaustic, I create allegorical works that may open doors to self-reflection and the discovery of pathways to a deeper part of the creative visual mind.  I am fascinated with the aesthetics of motion and rhythm, I often create works, from my own experience, as a long-time dancer and equestrian, incorporating the relationship of humans

and horses in movement. Whether I am making or teaching art or teaching people about horses and dance, I approach each as an expressive art form that can be communicated, learned and enjoyed. Inspiring others to realize the joy of self-expression through these forms of art is perhaps the greatest accomplishment I will make as an artist.

Bio:

Fox thrived as a student at Venice High School’s arts program graduating in 1970 with honors as an Art Major. Her art teacher Betty Edwards, author of “Drawing on the Right Side of your Brain”, was instrumental in Fox’s awarded scholarship to attend Art Center, College of Design. 

After college Fox became a fine artist showing her works in street shows and galleries throughout the 1970s. From 1987-1997 Fox switched her fine art focus to illustration and graphic design with a focus on publishing her works and entered the world of ‘journalism art’ at The Seattle Times and as Art Director of News at MSNBC. Over the ten-year period Fox continued to excel and won numerous illustration, design and informational graphics awards.

During a stint in Austin Texas, from 1997-2002 Fox, became Adjunct Professor of Illustration at Austin Community College in the Visual Communications Department where she won the NISOD Teaching Excellence Award, a national award for community college professors. 

In 2002 Fox returned to the Pacific Northwest and has continued her lifetime art profession (since 1971), has taught people about horses since 1987 and has taught The Nia Technique since 2004. Fox has enjoyed being a resident artist at Fogue Studios and Gallery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle since 2019. 

Find Randee's available work here.

  Artist Statement

 I never want to know too much about what I am doing. I would rather fumble, stumble and play with line, form and color relationships where I emphasize creativity over skills.
I am at my best as an artist when I collaborate rather than try to control my materials, and if I’m lucky a language develops between me and my work. I don’t always know where I’m going but trust that I’ll get there. My practice of making art is also a vehicle for tapping onto a deeper consciousness that where I can step outside of my day-to-day reality and shake hands with the unknown.
 

Experimentation, spontaneity and curiosity are my guides, passion is my fuel.

Bio:

Karen Graber is an abstract, mixed media artist. She has been a professional artist for over 30 years and has been an art instructor through continuing education at community colleges throughout Seattle.

Karen has studied art at Cornish College of the Arts, The Factory of Visual Arts, Pratt Fine Arts Center and University of Washington. 

Karen’s work has been in numerous galleries and juried shows through the years and is collected nationally.

Find Karen's available work here.
 

Arts Education: 

Cornish College of Allied Arts
Factory of Visual Arts
University of Washington