About Karen Benioff Friedman
Karen was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She had a secular upbringing, with most family vacations spent in the wilderness, either the Sierra Nevada in California, the shores of New England, or the forests and lakes of northern Maine.
She grew up on the East Coast, in Massachusetts and then New York. Karen received a BA in Fine Arts from Amherst College, concentrating on drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. After Amherst she briefly attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then moved to California.
Karen was married in California where she now resides. After the birth of her two children, she and her husband joined Congregation Netivot Shalom and in 2004 she joined their Chevra Kadisha. She began performing taharah (the ritual washing, purification, and dressing of the dead) and for a while was a co-chair of the Chevra.
Since college, Karen has always made art in some form. After moving to California she found a private printmaking group in Berkeley and worked there until Covid.
Karen attended Golden Gate Atelier in Oakland, California, from 2012 until 2017. There, she learned the rigorous principles of Realism in drawing and painting, as well as an in-depth knowledge of human anatomy.
When she concluded her studies, Karen began painting and drawing in her home studio, and, after Covid, she joined Kala Printmaking Collective in Berkeley as an Artist In Residence. Her principle artistic subject matter is the work of the Chevra Kadisha and the liturgy of the rituals.
Her children have grown and moved into their own lives, and Karen and her husband still take extended trips into the Sierra and White Mountains of California. Also, several times a year they make their way into the deserts of the American West, where there is still perfect peace to be found.