Karin Schminke

Karin Schminke began integrating digital technologies into her mixed media fine art over 20 years ago. A pioneer and educator in this developing field, Schminke's exploratory work has helped to define the role digital technologies play in today's art world. Her fine art involves combining photographic, drawing and printmaking techniques with new digital techniques. The outcome is a synthesis of traditions, which results in transformation of all the media involved. Schminke received her MFA from the University of Iowa in 1979, and taught art, design and digital imaging at several colleges and universities until 1994 when she began to focus full time on her art.

She is a founding member of Unique Editions and a member of the digital art collaborative, Digital Atelier along with Dorothy Simpson Krause and Bonny Lhotka. In conjunction with the Unique Edition and Digital Atelier artists, she received a Computerworld Smithsonian award for visionary use of Information Technology for her work in co-organizing and participating in a three week artist-in-residence at the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC.

Schminke has co-authored a book, "Digital Art Studio: Techniques for Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials" with Dorothy Simpson Krause and Bonny Pierce Lhotka. This book documents processes developed by the three artists over the past ten years to integrate digital technologies with traditional techniques and materials. It is published by Watson-Guptill and released in 2004.

Schminke's work has been exhibited throughout the world and been covered by dozens of magazines. She is a frequent lecturer on the blending of traditional and digital media and lives in Seattle, Washington, USA.

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