Touch the Earth

Hand printed on raw silk I create original designs inspired by a love of nature and the belief in the miracle of our opportunity to experience it.

Prayer flags, scrolls and tapestries are hand printed for home and garden. A limited line of kimonos, Persian pants and more are still available.

“To make one’s living following your heart’s desire is wonderful!”

Born in Ukiah, CA, Cathy Coulson-Keegan followed her grandmother’s steps creating art from her earliest days. After receiving a degree in Fine Art, and then taking a few years off to begin a family of four, Coulson-Keegan swept her children up into the world of art and they became a part of her studio called Touch the Earth. The family traveled, in the early 70’s, exhibiting and selling at galleries and local art fairs. In 1987 Cathy and kids moved into a home and studio on Emerald Street in Eugene and into her Oregon Country Fair booth on the same weekend. By this time her work had developed into an ethnic clothing line, each piece hand screened with her original designs.

On the Solstice, in 1991, under an eclipsing full moon with a meteor shower, Cathy and her partner Bill joined their lives, but it was in 1994, when they joined in sharing their Oregon Country Fair booth that the die was cast and they began to work together. Using his fabrication skills Bill crafted frames and Cathy designed and printed the silk used on lamps and lanterns. Cathy continues to create the designs for the prayer flags and scrolls, hand printing them on silk.

Today Cathy and Bill’s home, studio and garden are located in Veneta, near the Oregon Country Fair site, where they are working together with delight and passion on a meditative bamboo garden and making stuff.