Festival Artist 2006: Karen Allaben-Confer
Our 2006 playbill cover featured "Transitions" by Karen Allaben-Confer, one of Light in Winter's 2006 performers. Confer was first introduced to the world of birds by her husband John, an Ithaca College professor, aquatic ecologist, and ornithologist. She learned how to sketch and paint birds from life at the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad. Now birds and all that relate to them consume the couple's professional and personal lives. They travel extensively to Canada, Maine, and the far north to learn and gain inspiration. She has won the George Miksch Sutton Award for Ornithological Art, and the prize-winning work was featured as the frontispiece of The Wilson Bulletin, an international journal for professional ornithologists. Her entries have also been accepted by the esteemed Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, and, with other selected works, have traveled with the "Birds in Art" tour for nine years.
