Kari Hanson is a visual artist, teaching artist, arts education advocate, and community organizer who believes strongly in the transformative potential of the arts to empower individuals and unite and build communities. Having served in various roles in education, youth work, and the arts, she approaches her work with a broad range of perspectives. The vision of this work has always been to support a community-wide effort to ensure that high quality arts experiences are accessible to all K-12 students in Milwaukee and to raise the profile of the arts as not just an add-on, but an essential part of the human experience. As an artist herself, creating artwork in her home studio is a way for her to meditate on issues and ideas and re-focus and rebuild her energy.  Her artwork has been shown nationally and internationally as well as featured in several publications on political art.