KARO
ARTISTIC JOURNEY
Karatet Kouyoumjan Born 1961 in Yerevan, Armenia, USSR started his creative journey when he was just four years old collecting copper wire clippings from the telephone repairman. He would spend hours creating animal figures from the clippings. When he was six he moved on to drawing.
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There was an artist Collins who lived in a village nearby. He and his two sons would do marble carvings of the USSR’s previous leader Vladimir Lenin. Karo was inspired by this. His mother bought him clay and he sculpted elephants and giraffes using the clay. He was then introduced to a well known art academy where they were impressed with his works but concluded that he was too young to attend the school.
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At the age of twelve he became intrigued with gymnastics but would still go on art binges of sculpting and drawing. At the age of fourteen his family moved to the United States. He started painting on the walls of his garage with discarded paint. He says the work had many secrets to it. He then started using canvases to fulfill his expression. His secrets were in these works as well. Sometimes collectors would not find these hidden visuals until years after purchasing the works.
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At the age of twenty six years of age he started his own Pool Service Business called Karo’s Pool Service. He found endless inspiration with the art at one of his clients establishments, the Bel Age in Hollywood. The inspiration led to the creation of about thirty works. According to Karo these pieces contained a lot of heart and detail. From there he moved on to creating what he does today, wire sculptures. He is especially inspired to create movable sculptures. is that they are created in his pool service truck while he is sitting at stop lights as he drives around to service his clients.
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He currently resides in West Hollywood California. In 2019 he was accepted into the prestigious Laguna Arts Festival Art Affair. He does about four shows per year. He can be contacted at (310) 808-3323 for more information.
n 1966, as the tide moved away from representational art in Southern California, traditionalists found it increasingly difficult to retain exhibitor space in the single largest local art festival of the day, the renowned Festival of Arts. Determined to show their work, they hung their paintings on fences at Glenneyre Street and Park Avenue in Laguna Beach. The show was such a hit with the public they were required to search for a larger venue for the next year. A vacant lot on North Coast highway was chosen, and the Laguna Beach Fine Arts Association was formed. An enterprising reporter labeled it “The Sawdust Festival”, due to the unusual ground covering used.
In those first two years all artwork was juried, and exhibitors were required to be residents of Laguna Beach. However, toward the end of the second season “irreconcilable differences” spawned a permanent split that prompted a portion of the membership to move north up the canyon and take their unique ground covering with them, becoming what is known today as the Sawdust Art Festival. While still without any permanent home, the remaining artists soon found their identity in a final name change and became the Art-A-Fair. But the growing pains didn’t stop there. The festival now had new challenges to face: handling sales, creating publicity, and drawing fresh artwork all became uphill battles. Also, keeping their financial heads above water was challenging, but they persevered. In 1972 Art-A-Fair’s hard-won efforts were so successful another move was ordained, but, again, finding a good home wasn’t easy. When a larger property adjacent to the Hotel Laguna became available, the festival doubled its size to 110 artists, and in 1973 the show was touted as a leading showcase of traditional art in Orange County.