The following article was recently published in Charleston Magazine's Arts Issue.

Klaper Chosen as one of Ten Emerging Artists

When the editorial staff at Charleston magazine began planning this Arts Issue last fall, we wondered this: who is out in the community creating interesting and as of yet undiscovered artwork? Our second, and perhaps more difficult, question was how to find them?

So we partnered with the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston to create a competition of local artists, the winners of which would be featured in the May 2006 Charleston magazine and have their work showcased in an exhibition. We set the criteria for local emerging talent: artists of any age who have resided in the tri-county area for at least two years, have never had a major local solo exhibition, and work in at least one of the following disciplines: painting, sculpture, works of paper, printmaking, photography, digitally created work, and mixed media.

In January, a call for entries was advertised in the magazine and mailed out to the lists of local arts organizations; the response was overwhelming. Our jury panel examined nearly 80 entries a cross-section of some truly outstanding work. After hours of deliberation, the panelists chose 10 deserving winners Charleston magazine and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art's 2006 Under the Radar Emerging Artists.

About Klaper, the magazine wrote:

Julie Klaper likes to say she took 35 years to complete art school. As a college freshman, daunted by the possibility of crafting a living from her art major, she switched to business and pursued a marketing career instead. After decades of sandwiching art classes into the pockets of her executive schedule, she became a student again in her fifties and graduated from the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis.

Now able to devote much of her time to her craft, the mixed-media artist says the life experiences that unfurled between the bookends of her art studies add an auto-biographical depth and perspective to her work that she would not have had as a younger artist.

"I think my work is intensely personal, but I'm dealing with some of the same issues that many people do," Klaper says, noting that caring for her chronically ill husband has influenced several of her pieces, such as Sharing the Pain, an abstract sculpture of two joined coiled figures made from refrigerator tubing and stereo wire. "I think I'm a different person in terms of where my art is because of the experiences I've had taking care of my husband. I think it's altered me. I look at where I was 10 years ago or five years ago, and it has changed my perspective in terms of dealing with people and dealing with myself."

Influenced by women's history and the techniques used to fashion the utilitarian beauty of common objects such as baskets, quilts, and clothing, Klaper says she begins with ideas or messages she wants to communicate and then finds materials to express those visions, ranging from latex gloves to hand-knit wire, hand-dyed silk, or embroidered damask. She works intuitively, letting her well-honed instincts guide the process.

"As an artist, you hope you know when a piece is complete, because there's always the threat of taking something too far and spoiling the spontaneity you had there. It becomes too planned. It's always a balancing act of knowing when to say' enough," says Klaper, who finds herself thinking of her own legacy and what she will leave behind. "The highlight for me has been that I'm coming to peace with my work right now. My work is becoming more individualized more an expression of myself. I'm happy with the path I'm going down right now."

[Download a PDF of the Charleston Magazine article]
[View the work shown in the magazine]