Cecilia Karoly-Lister joined The Nave Studio Artists in January 2025. A born-and-raised Alaskan interdisciplinary artist, her body of work spans quilting, guerrilla gardening, nature-based papermaking, oil painting, and mixed media installations. Her recent quilted pieces are constructed in paint-like layers, forming emotionally resonant scenes of queer love, daily life, and shared feasting. 

Cecilia was drawn to The Nave, she says, because it offers one of the few true artist studio environments in town — spaces where other artists are actively creating. She values being in a place designed for making, noting that the setting reflects CIHA’s understanding of the activities and needs of working artists. Nearly every Monday evening, Cecilia settles into her studio while Alaska Youth Orchestra practices nearby, working with the lights low and the doors open. The music drifting in creates an atmosphere that inspires her, a sensation she describes as uniquely energizing and impossible to find elsewhere. 

With an MFA from Tufts University in Boston and more than a decade of exhibition and study experience, Cecilia eventually stepped away from oil painting after considering the material’s problematic history and ongoing reliance on toxic and exploitative mining practices. Textiles offered a more sustainable and intuitive alternative, she says. All of Cecilia’s fabrics come from secondhand scraps; they are easily portable—foldable, mailable, and simple to store between shows. She also feels deeply connected to the textile community and its long history of communal creation, believing that the old divide between craft and fine art no longer reflects the reality of contemporary work. 

Cecilia ultimately returned to Alaska out of a sense of belonging—to the land, to her family, and to the communal dimension of her creative practice. She always knew she would be an artist, having been a remarkably “directed” child who imagined a future as “either a farmer or an artist, ideally both.” In many ways, she now sees herself as embodying both paths. 

You can learn more about Cecilia’s work at https://www.cecilialister.com/. 

Artist Photos by David Chapa at Cook Inlet Housing Authority; Portfolio (below) by Cecilia Karoly-Lister.