Destined for Downtown Rogers

Watercolor artist and co-founder of the Downtown Rogers Art on the Bricks Art Walk, Karen Wagaman, set her sights on relocating to Northwest Arkansas in 2016. She grew up two hours just away near Branson before moving to Topeka, Kansas for more than 25 years. The opportunity to head back to the Ozarks came about when her daughter graduated from high school and decided to attend University of Arkansas.

Wagaman began exploring the various cities and attending Rotary Club meetings as a means of finding the right fit for her next community. A fan of historic architecture, locally owned businesses, she decided to explore Downtown Rogers the third or fourth time she visited. As soon as she saw the brick streets and historic buildings, she knew she wanted to live in Rogers. She pulled into a parking spot on South 1st Street and walked into a business that sold yarn and quilt making supplies. The Rabbit’s Lair, now named The Gathering in Rogers was—and still is—owned by Clarice Moore, a Rogers native who welcomed her immediately.

A quick and fortunate series of events led to the opportunity to accept a job with the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce and purchase a home close to Downtown. The only thing that was missing was a connection with the arts community. Wagaman learned there was an opportunity for artists to set up a pop-up exhibit on the 1st Saturday of each month through the summer and participate in the Heart of Rogers Craft Fair, so she became involved in both. Additional opportunities to help establish the Rogers Experimental House and Downtown Rogers Art on The Bricks Art Walk provided more than enough opportunity to connect with artists and makers and nourish that unyielding hunger of an artist’s soul.

She was initially inspired to paint watercolor paintings of the Historic Downtown Rogers Buildings and later migrated to painting cat and dog portraits and an occasional pig. Examples of each will be displayed at the Rogers Experimental House during the September Yo + Aqui (I + Here) art exhibit curated by Artist David Gomez.