Painting a creative release for Ilse Killian-Tan

There is a slight tint of sorrow in the eyes of artist Ilse Killian-Tan.

She grew up in a loving family in East Germany when communism was in full force. She called it an awful and confusing time. The politics affected her childhood, but art helped her through the trying times. “It’s important to be in harmony with the universe and everything. When I’m out of sync I cannot be creative,” she said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t touch their creative side.”

She started painting in her teen years and has had a pencil or a brush close by ever since. Her paintings are thoughtful and dreamy landscapes or interesting representations of things like onions and seaweed. “I like to bring out thought and feeling in my work,” she said.

She became a translator and interpreter (mainly to support her artistic endeavors) in East Germany. At age 20, she traveled through the night under a blanket of fog into West Germany. “I was scared but I didn’t have much of a choice. East Germany was dangerous.”

After residing in West Germany for a few years, she moved to the United States in the 1960s. By 1977, she had earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in literature and foreign language and a bachelor’s degree in art from Eastern Washington University, where she was introduced to fiber art.

For the past 30 years, Killian-Tan has lived in a home built in 1912, just east of Airway Heights. The house has character and is decorated with an eclectic mix of art in many mediums from many eras. Killian-Tan, also a writer, has a huge collection of books. “I like to surround myself with different kinds of art and books.”

Her paintings and fiber wall hangings adorn many walls in her home, and she has three rooms in which to work: a drawing room, a painting room, and a weaving room filled with looms and rows of yarn. “It’s the way I have to be,” she said.

Her fiber wall hangings are abstract illustrations of the natural world and include tapestries and three-dimensional pieces. Her creations bring warmth to the rooms they are displayed in.

She has been in the publications “New Art International” and the California Art Review and from 1988 to 1993 she was a member of the Los Angeles Art Association. She has had exhibits in Washington, Idaho, Germany, Los Angeles, Massachusetts and Montana and her work is in numerous private and public collections.

Killian-Tan speaks five languages, plays the piano, rides horses and enjoys nature. Her personality is reflected in her work which is filled with harmony and the occasional “political statement” like her wall hanging entitled “The Earth” that shows the planet bleeding. Another piece has a tiny mouse skull affixed to the fabric.