2025 Twining Humber Award Recipient 

Keiko Hara, Walla Walla County

2025 SOLA Awards Recipients

Caryn Friedlander, Whatcom County
Jeanne K Simmons​, Jefferson County
Consuelo Soto Murphy​, Benton County
Cynthia Toops​, King County
Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen​, Skagit County

2024 Twining Humber & SOLA Awards Panelists  

Cynthia Masterson​, King County
MalPina Chan​, Thurston County​
Mary Farrell​, Spokane County

Keiko Hara

Keiko Hara, Topophilia — Hope · Peace · Dream · Growth, 2024. Photo: Colby Kuschatka

Keiko Hara, 2025 Twining Humber Award Recipient

Kieko Hara was born in 1942 in North Korea to Japanese parents. When war broke out, her father was captured, and her mother managed to bring Kieko and her sisters to Japan, where they faced significant hardship. In third grade, she was accepted into a gifted art program, marking the beginning of her artistic path. Despite her family’s disapproval, she graduated from a two-year art college and went on to teach art at the Kagoshima Handicapped School for five years. During this time, she exhibited her work in Tokyo, Kagoshima, and Oita.

At the age of 28, Hara immigrated to the United States alone to pursue her art. She earned a BFA, an MA, and later an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She was granted U.S. Permanent Residency in recognition of her accomplishments as an artist. Hara taught art at Whitman College for 21 years, serving as Chair of the Art Department while also raising her child as a single mother.

Now based in Walla Walla, Washington, she works across media including painting, printmaking, glass, and installation. Her work has been featured in over 50 solo exhibitions nationwide, as well as in group shows across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Her pieces are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art and other major institutions.

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Caryn Friedlander

Caryn Friedlander, Lotus, 2023. Photo: Caryn Friedlander

Caryn Friedlander, 2025 SOLA Recipient

Curiosity is a motivating force in Caryn Friedlander’s creative process. For Caryn, art making is an adventure into the unknown, a challenge to discover what is true – in herself, life, love, nature and beauty. This perspective aligns with her contemplative practice, where maintaining an openness to the possibility of “not knowing” or, not holding to preconceived outcomes, is a way to live fully into the most profound questions that give meaning to life.

Caryn Friedlander earned her MA in Japanese art history in 1987 and her MFA in painting and drawing in 1991, both from the University of Washington. She received a Japanese fellowship to study art in Japan, which strongly influenced her approach to gesture, form, and space in her work. Her imagery references the natural world, which she engages with daily, on walks in the woods and by water with her dogs, or when tending her substantial garden.

Caryn taught studio art full-time at Whatcom Community College (Bellingham) for 25 years, all the while maintaining a robust studio practice. She has received multiple artist residency awards in the U.S. and abroad. Her work can be found in numerous public collections, including Swedish Hospital, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, WSU, Harborview Medical Center and Whatcom Museum. Her work was represented by Francine Seders until the gallery closed in 2013, and she is currently represented by ArtX Contemporary in Seattle.

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Jeanne K Simmons

Jeanne K Simmons, Grass Cocoon, 2018

Jeanne K Simmons, 2025 SOLA Recipient

Jeanne was born and raised in coastal New Hampshire. She grew up exploring neighborhood marshes, woods, and the Atlantic coastline with her four semi-feral siblings. She graduated from the Maine College of Art in 1991 with a BFA in Sculpture, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture the following summer.

In 1992, Jeanne briefly attended graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved to the Pacific Northwest a short time later where she met her husband and fellow artist, Gunter Reimnitz. Jeanne and Gunter moved to Port Townsend, Washington in 1999, where they raised their two wonderful kids creatively and close to nature. Jeanne currently enjoys having daily wild adventures with her three rescue dogs. Together they discover the materials, landscapes, and seascapes that inspire her work.

Jeanne’s work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the Pacific Northwest and has been published in national and international books, magazines, and journals. She is currently preparing for a show at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and is collaborating on a film about her work with filmmaker Ward Serrill (Heart of the Game, The Bowmakers, Dancing with the Dead).

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Consuelo Soto Murphy

Consuelo Soto Murphy, Three Large Strawberries, 2018. Photo: Shawn Murphy

Consuelo Soto Murphy, 2025 SOLA Recipient

Consuelo Soto Murphy, daughter of migrant farm workers, grew up working in the fields alongside her large family. These early experiences continue to inspire her colorful, expressive paintings that celebrate the beauty of the land and of her culture. A first-generation college graduate from Eastern Washington University, Consuelo was the art teacher at Richland High School for over three decades with her husband, Shawn Murphy, working across the hall as the photography teacher. The couple raised three sons, two of whom pursued careers in art education as well. Her work has earned wide recognition, including being named Artist of the Year by the Governor’s Mansion Foundation in 2023. Her art has appeared in the television series Madam Secretary, on wine labels, and in galleries, in businesses, and in homes worldwide. She was also selected as a featured artist for the Yakima Valley Libraries bookmobile and the national All of Us Research Program. Most recently, Consuelo was granted Washington State Arts Council’s Legacy and Heritage Award for her impact on community and culture.

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Cynthia Toops

Cynthia Toops, Devil May Care, 2018, Photo: Doug Yaple

Cynthia Toops, 2025 SOLA Recipient

Cynthia grew up in Hong Kong, but left in 1975 to attend college in the United States, Despite graduating summa cum laude with B.A. in Biology and a year of graduate school at Drake University, she eventually decided to switch focus to art, graduating from the University of Washington with a B.F.A. in printmaking in 1983.

She began working with polymer clay in 1986, a material she first encountered during a visit with her sisters in Hong Kong. As a struggling artist, the low cost of the material, equipment and setup was a definite bonus. The lack of history and established “rules” with an emerging craft material was also liberating. Although polymer is her main medium, she occasionally uses other material such as glass, felt, paper, metal and other plastics in her work.

For almost 40 years, she’s made beads, pendants, necklaces, bracelets and other forms of jewelry, but is best known for her micromosaics, a technique she developed in 1992. She takes inspiration from ethnic jewelry, folk art, and nature and enjoys collaboration with other artists.

Her work is found in galleries, private and museum collections including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, Fuller Craft Museum, Racine Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Museum of Art & Design (New York) and the Swiss National Museum (Zurich).

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Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen

Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen, Gilded, 2014, Photo: Russel Johnson

Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen, 2025 SOLA Recipient

Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen’s work is the result of countless hours of observation and dedication to the studio glass movement. After earning her BFA in sculpture from Ohio University, glass quickly became the driving force in Karen’s life. She moved to Washington State in 1987, and soon afterward she began working as an assistant to the legendary glass artist William Morris. Over the last two decades Karen has honed her artistic voice and has undeniably helped pave the way for young females in the hot shop. Raised in Ohio, the daughter of a naturalist father, Willenbrink-Johnsen is constantly inspired, revitalized, and awed by the power of nature, often trying to capture this spirit in her own work. Karen’s unique vision and passion for glass is evident, teaching sculpting classes worldwide with her husband and collaborator, Jasen Johnsen. Together they have inspired hundreds of new glass artists through their love of glass.

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