D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
September 2009
Karen Carr
Page: 2Carr grew up with a keen interest in physics and earth sciences, as well as art, and narrowly missed majoring in chemistry at the University of Texas-Austin. "I was accepted by the chemistry department, but showed up [to register] on the wrong week," she recalls. "I went instead to the art department and the dean there talked me into enrolling as an art major. But I double-tracked for two years and took calculus and physics as well as art. I then transferred to North Texas State University, which had professional internships. When I graduated I got a job right away."
Later, Carr enrolled in an MBA program and studied marketing, accounting and related business courses. Around the same time, she got married and gave birth to a daughter.
Then, as now, her dad was an important inspiration and mentor. "Bill is a genius," Carr says of her father. Despite suffering a stroke soon after relocating to Silver City, he "still can do work that nobody else on the planet can do. His ability to do people is wonderful, and he still teaches us."
After her side-trip into advertising, which helped her master some crucial skills, Carr took advantage of past friendships in the realm of science — particularly paleontology — to drum up business. She pounded pavement and knocked on doors.
"There was no one to show me how to do this," the artist sighs, rolling her eyes. "I kind of wormed my way into it and built a business over the past 20 years." So successful has her studio become that Carr was awarded the PNM/WESST "New Mexico Rural Entrepreneur of the Year" award in 2008, among many other citations she and her husband have received over their careers.
In the future, Carr hopes to add digital animation and 3D production to her studio's repertoire. She acknowledges that the ongoing press of contracted jobs has so far limited the team's capacity for expansion into new domains: "Once we get some down time, we'd like to expand our product offerings, but that will involve a learning curve."
Over the past year, she points out, the tight economy has been rough on the institutions that are commonly the studio's best customers. "Their money tends to come from charitable contributions, state money and federal money." Such funding has been scarce during the current recession.
By now, however, Carr's reputation is such that clients generally come to her rather than her soliciting them. She also has developed a finely tuned appreciation for what makes a worthy project — and an excellent museum. She is especially proud that her adopted hometown boasts one of the latter.
"Museums are our industry," the artist says, "and one of the major things that made this the kind of community we wanted to raise our daughter in, to live in, and to retire in was when I walked into the Silver City Museum and saw what a professional facility it was. This was not grandma's attic and [a collection of] whatever people had donated with a little text attached. It was a beautiful, well-run museum, despite having very few resources. I was very impressed."
So much so, in fact, that Carr has joined the museum's governing board and become an enthusiastic booster of its expanding programs. "I'm excited about the new campus in Mimbres," she declares, "and the expansion on Broadway," where the Ailman House headquarters is being remodeled and the recently acquired power company building revamped.
Other local Carr involvements include painter Diana Leyba's youth mural program, through which the studio is helping young people create an acrylic mural at Bataan Memorial Park, near Fort Bayard, honoring survivors of World War II's infamous Bataan Death March.
"Silver City is perfect for us," Carr concludes, ticking off her necessary criteria for a town. The list includes not only a high-speed Internet connection and UPS delivery, but natural beauty and friendly, hard-working residents. "Besides all these things, I love the role that art plays in this community. We have so many creative people here. Yes, this really is where we want to be."
Southwest Storylines columnist Richard Mahler is a writer based in Silver City, where he guides walking tours of the downtown historic district. Learn more at www.SilverCityWalks.com For an excerpt from his new book, The Jaguar's Shadow, see this issue.