Karrie Steely and her partner live, work and create on their homestead farm on the high plains of Nebraska. Her art is inspired by life, landscapes, and found objects on the farm and on winter migrations to the desert southwest.

Her artwork has been exhibited in many shows and galleries in Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas. Recent projects include active involvement in community development and leadership of the McCook Creative District. She is a 2023-2025 Rural Regenerator Fellow with Springboard for the Arts. Click here for current news.

“Being an artist means living in accord with continuous cycles. Growth, struggle, insight … Growth, struggle, illumination … it goes on. It’s a consuming process that can’t be bypassed. During the struggles my art turns to inward places. But by mucking about in the shadows, I find seeds. And the seeds lead to new places of growth and innovation. It can be likened to Jungian shadow work, or Positive Disintegration, or Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Spirals of experience that lead to deep insight and dynamic growth that is chaotic, organic, adaptive, emergent, and complex. In my experience, that is what living as an artist is about.”