Kris Leet was born in New York State in 1948, eldest of three children. She holds a Master of Social Work degree from the University of South Florida, and was a child and family therapist for many years. She has two children, a daughter and a son. Kris says: "Like my grandmother I came to art late in life. Although I learned to weave in 1971, was a fine arts student (painting, metalwork, clay) in the mid-seventies, and had my first art show (textiles and mixed media) in the late seventies, I did not come to understand art as my vocation until my fifties. I work in several mediums: fiber, gourds, coiled basketry, and metal. I choose to work with my hands. I am touched by everything that I manipulate; the work and I exchange energy, and we are both changed by the process. My art is a manifestation of my understanding of what it is to be a human being within the natural world. Neolithic cultures left us a rich horde of symbols and images that hint at a knowledge of and relationship with layers of the natural world that we no longer recognize or value. I deliberately choose to use my art as a way of making contact with those symbols and images that seem to mark the essential matrices and I seek to recall these forgotten understandings back into our world. My work is epiphany driven, an exploration of the unmapped territory sensed just beyond where I currently stand." Kris lives in the Pacific Northwest, is active in the local arts and magickal communities, and takes great pleasure in being a work in progress.
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