Events

With her paper collages, Caroline Allen tries to capture the spirit of short stories by Kia Penso using images conjured up by the stories, research into Caribbean flora and fauna, and conversations with Penso. With each new collage, suggestions and remnants from other collages push shapes and colors into new relationships, some more abstract, others more illustrative. There’s always a bit of chance, intuition, and play involved in her collage making. Allen’s collages are being used to design multi-colored linocuts for the NEA funded KBAC letterpress publication The Ghosts, a limited-edition book of short stories by Kia Penso.

Caroline Allen taught as a Lecturer in Literature and Writing at the College of Creative Studies (CCS) at UC Santa Barbara for over three decades, while also pursuing her work as a visual artist. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Santa Barbara Independent, Juxtapose Literary Magazine, Solo Novo, and Mary, and she has work in the collections of Santa Barbara and Ventura County. For several years Allen co-directed the CCS Summer Arts Institute, bringing under-represented preteen and teenage students to the UCSB campus for painting, drawing, writing, and photography lessons in a six-week intensive program. As an artist she works in a variety of media including painting, printmaking, ceramics, and collage. Her most recent project was a collaboration with the writer Kay Young on an illustrated book entitled We’ve Never Been So Unannoyed: Iceland for the Lady Traveler.