Marnie Karger is a Minnesota based artist who creates incredible paper topography maps of famous US waterways and landmasses in beautiful colors. The detailing in her creations is marvelous and very fine. Each piece at Crafterall shows Marnie's dedication, love and laborious efforts that she puts in. "I have enjoyed working with my hands since I was just a squirt. My "crafting area" grew from a decorated cardboard box to my own craft room", shares the artist.

Lets know more about her in the interview below with all her fantabulous creations:




Marnie, please introduce yourself to E-junkies.

I’m a Minnesota native and, by default, a lover of the lakes and land around me. I share my home with my charming husband, our two clever daughters, and a wonderfully dopey retired racing greyhound.

Enlighten us with your wonderful artwork.

Through an evolution of happy accidents, I’ve been cutting and layering colored cardstock to resemble bathymetric and topographic maps. Although I employ a simple, digital, blade-type cutter that allows me to work more detail in my pieces, I still hand cut elements on every piece I make. Each piece is completed one layer at a time in my studio in the basement of our home.

Lake Superior

Manhattan

(Clockwise from top left): San Francisco, Baja California, Amsterdam and the Sunderbans of India

How did you get interested in crafting?

My mom and many of her immediate relatives have been talented artists, and watching her work on an illustration so seemingly effortlessly paired with my nature as a packrat lead to my inevitable role as a crafter. I made miniature neighborhoods out of molded, plastic packaging, elaborate street maps for my Matchbox cars sprawling across great swaths of cardboard, lopsided plush animals with button eyes, and greeting cards for all my favorite people made using scraps from my enormous treasure bin. I’ve always loved doing something creative with my hands, and to be able to share that creativity as a career still feels too good to be true.

Retro Fern

Retro Tulips

Reincarnations

What tickles the artistic side in you?

The little, poetic moments in everyday life. The haiku-like observations that turn, in my head like a child rolling in an awkward somersault, into a realization that holds gravity, bearing and worth. Catching some small detail and loving it for its “there-ness.” Loving it because it exists and I saw it, and I am now more connected to my own life because of it. There are moments like these that spawn poems, and others that send me sketching, and others still that press me to make up a tune and belt it out when I’m in the car by myself.

Great Lakes

San Francisco Bay

What is the process of making such hand cut paper masterpieces? What step do you find the most challenging one?

I start with a place. It may be a popular and populated area like a seaside harbor, or a remote puddle of a lake in the middle of an immense forest. I find and study maps of the area, consulting departments of natural resources, historical maps, and modern satellite imagery. From there, I trace the image using computer software and then run that as a cut file to my digital cutter. It cuts a nice, smooth line for the top layer. Beneath that, I adhere the first layer of cardstock, and then cut that by hand using a tiny swivel blade, eying the contour lines from my research as I go. Two more layers like that, and then I adhere the final, back layer on the piece. I sign, date, and stamp the piece, and it’s ready to go.

I used to worry more about how I interpreted the lines of the lake and ocean floor depths. Over time, I’ve been able to see patterns in lake and ocean depth contours. These patterns are clues as to how the body of water was formed, how it has changed, and how it is used. The varieties of contours have become more familiar to me and I feel more confident in my interpretations of them.

Still, one of the biggest challenges is the physical tax on my hands and wrists. I’ve been working more to change up my work flow and I’ve added ergonomic elements to my studio to work smarter and prevent injury.

Clary Lake

Dbl Fingers

Prince Of Wales

Great Lakes

On an average, how much time does it take you to complete one piece?

With every piece there’s a learning curve. Working a piece for the first time can take an entire day from start to finish. Then, after cutting my umpteenth version of that piece, I can run through the cutting and layering process in about fifteen minutes. I’m continually working on new pieces, so there’s always a nice mix of new, brain-hungry work, and faster, more familiar work.

Rogue Cascades

Prior to being an artist and online business owner, you were in teaching line. Tell us about this transition from a teacher to a business owner.

While I could probably tease out a dozen aspects of teaching that have lead to or aided me becoming a small business owner, the truth was that the decision came down to money. When we had our second child and considered the cost of putting her and her sister in day care, I couldn’t afford to keep teaching. So I stayed home with my girls and started crafting. Urged by friends and family, I opened my Etsy shop three years ago and haven’t looked back. The pace has been “just too fast” so that I’ve had to continually improve my work, my effort, and my efficiency, all the while building what is now Crafterall, and setting sights on what it will be.


Now this is a difficult one-which creation by you is your favorite?

My favorite is any piece in layers of all white. I dig the subtlety and artfulness of these pieces. It’s like they play a trick on the viewer: from a distance they look like a plain, white block, but as the viewer moves closer or moves to the side, there’s an “ah-ha!” moment where s/he realizes there’s really something to this, and if recognition of that something follows, there’s an immediate reward there. This little extra characteristic only adds to the sense of place, or of privacy perhaps, a sense of home, my home, and my own connections to this place.

Touched

Minnetonka

Is there any dream project of yours?

There’s a bazillion dream projects in my head. Some are smaller scale, like a flip-through calendar with a cutout element that changes every month-- the act of changing the month altering the compound image created by the cuts on every page. Others are grandiose, like a huge playground or park where enormous topographies and lake floor contours are cast in concrete for children to explore like empty swimming pools.

Share the best compliment you've ever received for your work.

One of the neatest things anyone has ever done with my work was to gift it to a person with a visual impairment. My work, because of the layers, is tactile and the silhouettes can be traced and recognized by people whose hands and fingertips are practiced in this art. I was honored to have my work singled out for such a purpose, and I love the fact that someone was clever enough and thoughtful enough to consider my work as an apt gift for a person who couldn’t see.

Many other artists and our readers would draw inspiration from you. What message do you have for them? 

Do what makes you happy. Resist the urge to follow trends, and instead follow the often-unmarked trail of discovery dotted with mistakes and fueled by experiment. As creative as I’ve been, I don’t think I ever imagined myself cutting out lake bathymetries all day. But I do, and I can’t imagine being happier doing anything else. I’ve married the geeky science part of me with my crafty side, drawing from all sorts of inspiration to focus on downright magical bodies of water. Take your time, give things a try, and stop and smell the peonies.



























Marnie, thanks for such a delightful interview. I loved the way you shared your thoughts and ideas with us. You're an amazing artist and I am sure you have a long way to go. Wish you all the very best!

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