About Karen Kopacz

Artist, Designer & Collaborator

This Is What I Love: Being in nature, art and design, process, bringing good ideas to world, building relationships, and finding ways to bring them all together in community.

Gathering people together in creative practice has always been part of my path. Loose Leaf Project is another version of it. In 2020, I began the work of bringing a place that I have imagined into reality—a place to immerse myself and others in creative work…in nature. Connective work can happen anywhere and some of my favorite collaborative moments happened spontaneously.

All that matters is that two or more people show up for each other with a willingness to listen and share. Still, place and environment cna shape experience and practice in meaningful ways. This studio in-the-making is a place where creative work can happen—not just anywhere—but somewhere special.

A Long History of Art, Design, & Magazine-Making

Karen Kopacz, Artist & Writer

Karen Kopacz is an artist, writer, and designer and brand developer (Design for the Arts, LLC) with a long history of artistic collaborations and project leadership in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. She works with small and local businesses, artists, nature-based and environmental organizations, university programs, and non-profit publications and has partnered with leaders to strategically and creatively accomplish goals for over 24 years.

Karen is honored to be the designer and production manager for Hand Papermaking (since 2017), a globally-acclaimed art and paper-making journal, published biannually.

In 2022, Karen completed the Big Woods, Big Rivers Master Naturalist program and became a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. She is working toward establishing an art studio on a 6-acre woodland lot along the Namekagon River in Northern Wisconsin.

Karen has been a musician, a mobile art gallery curator, and SXSW Interactive Festival panel member for Fostering New Culture on the Internet. She developed and was director of Mental Contagion, an arts & literature online magazine featuring a global community of arts and culture creators. From 2000 to 2008, she collaborated with artists and writers to publish interviews and features each month, later 6 times per year.