Karen Blessen (born 1951) is an American graphic artist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 1989 for work together with David Hanners and William Snyder on a special section called "Anatomy of an Air Crash." She was the first graphic artist to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Karen Blessen was born in 1951. She lives in Dallas, TX. She has also lived in Lincoln, NE and Columbus, NE. She has been married to Kelly G. Nash since February 6, 2003. [1]
After graduating Columbus High School, Blessen graduated with a BFA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
In 1989, was a graphic artist at The Dallas Morning News. Beginning a decade later she started adding writing to her art work at the journal. This included 'One Bullet,' which was both a story and art package following the emotional aftermath of a murder that took place outside of her home in 2003. For this she was given an Honorable Mention in the Texas Associated Press Managing Editor's competition.
In 1994 she received the distinct honor by New York City's Times Square Business Improvement District to create a signature look for the New Times Square. [2]
In 1999-2000 New Year's Eve, Blessen headed a crew team of 'Times Square Confetti and Airborne Materials Engineers,' dropping three tons of confetti onto the crowd of celebrants below. Again she both wrote and illustrated a story detailing the experience, entitled 'Diary of a Confetti Engineer,' which appeared on January 16, 2000 in The Dallas Morning News. She won a Katie Award at the Advocate for a cover she did in October 2007 illustrating the Trinity Tollroad story. [3]
Blessen set up 29 Pieces which is an art organization that mounted the largest public art project in Dallas' history as a tribute to President John F. Kennedy. [4] She also co-founded Today Marks the Beginning – a not-for-profit organization that uses art to generate awareness of social issues.
In 2010, Blessen was selected by the Dallas Observer as one of three MasterMinds of the Arts in Dallas, as part of the publication's first MasterMinds competition. [5] In 2015, she was on the panel of judges for the District 30 Congressional Art Competition held at the Janette Kennedy Gallery. [6]
Blessen illustrated Peace One Day , published by G. P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers in 2005, which is a book for children about the creation of World Peace Day, in reference to 9/11. [7] She also was the graphic artist for the book Be An Angel, published by Simon and Schuster in 1994.
Blessen went to Africa to work with Save the Children. In 2002, she went to Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, interviewing women dealing with HIV/AIDS, producing 'Faces of a Plague' – a story and illustration of what she discovered – that was published in The Dallas Morning News and thereafter adapted for the Today Marks the Beginning theatrical production that raised more than $40,000 to "adopt" two villages in Malawi.
Blessen represented Texas in Absolut Statehood – a series of artworks commissioned by Absolut Vodka, benefiting the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS. [8]
Absolut Vodka is a brand of vodka, produced near Åhus, in southern Sweden. Absolut is a part of the French group Pernod Ricard. Pernod Ricard bought Absolut for €5.63 billion in 2008 from the Swedish state. Absolut is one of the largest brands of spirits in the world and is sold in 126 countries.
The Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting has been presented since 1998, for a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation. From 1985 to 1997, it was known as the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism.
Karen Elliott House is an American journalist and former managing editor at The Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones. She served as President of Dow Jones International and then publisher of the Wall Street Journal before her retirement in the spring of 2006. Her awards include a Pulitzer Prize.
William Snyder is an American photojournalist and former Director of Photography for The Dallas Morning News. Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1989 along with reporter David Hanners and artist Karen Blessen for their special report on a 1985 airplane crash, the follow-up investigation, and the implications for air safety. In 1991, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his pictures of ill and orphaned children living in desperate conditions in Romania. In 1993, Snyder and Ken Geiger won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for their photographic coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. As Photo Director he oversaw the Morning News photo staff's 2006 Pulitzer-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina. In the Spring of 2008, Snyder took the buyout at The Dallas Morning News and returned to his alma mater, the Rochester Institute of Technology. He initially served as the chair in the Photojournalism BFA program. However, he later transitioned to become the Undergraduate Program Director for Advertising Photography.
Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013.
Gayle Reaves is an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award. She was editor of the Fort Worth Weekly, an alternative newspaper serving the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, from October 2001 to March 2015.
David Leeson was a staff photographer for The Dallas Morning News. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2004, together with Cheryl Diaz Meyer, for coverage of the Iraq War. He also received the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, the National Headliner Award, and a regional Emmy Award in 2004 for his work as executive producer and photographer for the WFAA-TV documentary "War Stories."
Priscilla Hamby is an American illustrator and comic book artist. She specializes in Japanese manga style comics and uses the pen name Rem when published. She lives in Houston, Texas where graduated from the University of Houston Fine Arts Program in 2003.
Comics journalism is a form of journalism that covers news or nonfiction events using the framework of comics, a combination of words and drawn images. Typically, sources are actual people featured in each story, and word balloons are actual quotes. The term "comics journalism" was coined by one of its most notable practitioners, Joe Sacco. Other terms for the practice include "graphic journalism," "comic strip journalism", "cartoon journalism", "cartoon reporting", "comics reportage", "journalistic comics", "sequential reportage," and "sketchbook reports".
Elizabeth Olds was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, lithography processes. In 1926, she became the first woman honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship. She studied under George Luks, was a Social Realist, and worked for the Public Works of Art Project and Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. In her later career, Olds wrote and illustrated six children's books.
Massa Lemu is a visual artist and writer from Malawi who works in painting, drawing, performance and text-based conceptual work. He has described his art as "interventions and descriptions of the disputed social space we all live in".
Natalie Frank is an American artist. Currently living and working in New York City, her work deals with themes of power, sexuality, gender, feminism, and identity. Although Frank is best known as a painter, she has also explored other mediums including sculpture and drawing. Her most famous works are a series of drawings of the original, unsanitized Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
Barbara Davidson is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award winning photojournalist. She is currently a Guggenheim Fellow, 2019-2020, and is travelling the country in her car, with her two dogs, making 8x10 portraits of gun-shot survivors using an 8x10 film camera.
Merritt Mauzey (1897-1973) was an American lithographer and noted children’s book author and illustrator in the mid-20th century. Associated closely with the Dallas Nine group of artists, Mauzey was a self-taught artist known for his depictions of rural life and the cotton industry in his native Texas.
Janeil Engelstad is an American artist and curator. Her work focuses on the role of the arts and design in addressing social and environmental concerns. In addition to working independently, Engelstad produces projects through her organization Make Art with Purpose (MAP).
Jacqueline Marie Banaszynski is an American journalist. She was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1988. Banaszynski went on to become a professor and a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair at the school of journalism at University of Missouri.
On June 17, 2019, a shooting occurred at the Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse in Dallas, Texas, United States. No law enforcement officers or civilians were injured in the shooting, though one person sustained a superficial injury when she was taking cover. The shooter, identified as Brian Isaack Clyde, was then shot and killed by one or more federal officers.
Seema Yasmin is a British-American physician, writer and science communicator based at Stanford University. She is Director of Research and Education at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yasmin helped to debunk myths about the coronavirus.
Paula Mitchell Marks is an American historian specializing in U.S. women’s history and the history of the American West. She was a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for history for her book, In a Barren Land: American Indian Dispossession and Survival.
Fahmida Azim is a Bangladeshi-American illustrator and author. Fahmida won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for her portrayal of an escape from a Xinjiang internment camp.