Karen Russell, a ceramicist who lives in Barrington, Illinois, will be our featured artist for the month of May. Karen creates hand-built pottery, each piece containing some kind of botanical embellishment and most always a ladybug for “a pop of red.”Her creations are both beautiful and functional. Her plates, platters, bowls, and ever-popular berry bowls are each decorated with hand-built, three-dimensional botanical embellishments. From flowers to fruit and pine cones to pine needles, she carefully fashions these embellishments in a realistic way and then attaches them to her pieces.Eleven years ago, she signed up for a pottery class and took another and then another and kept on taking them. “I pretty soon ended up with two kilns in my basement,” Karen said.Karen has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a master’s in education. She has taken countless classes in pottery and studied botanical drawing with an instructor from the Art Institute of Chicago.Although Karen’s pottery is considered functional, many people would agree that it is too beautiful to use. Gazing upon the beauty of her seemingly realistic impressions in her botanical embellishments, one can't help but appreciate the beauty of each piece.