In the latest installment of our Culture Series, we sit down with multidisciplinary artist and cyclist Krysten Koehn, whose work explores the deep connection between body, movement, and place. Raised in Colorado but shaped by years of travel, Koehn’s creative practice mirrors the rhythms of cycling—fluid, exploratory, and deeply tactile. From sculptural maps carved from plywood to intricate paper wings inspired by migratory birds, her work blurs the lines between art and motion. We spoke with her about how cycling fuels her creativity, why Boulder’s landscape remains a constant muse, and how she’s redefining “home” through both her art and her exploration of the outdoors.

The Rocky Mountains are really special. Where I live in Boulder is nestled right up against the mountains, so I can be riding up a mountain or into a canyon within a couple of minutes from my front door. It’s a pretty amazing place to be.

My artistic practice and my cycling are very intertwined—cycling feels like drawing lines across a landscape. My work explores the intersection of body and land: how we fit into environments, assimilate, and find a sense of home. A bike offers a unique intimacy with the land—more than a car, with more range than being on foot.

I’ve moved a lot and lived in many places, and the bike has always helped me feel at home. My work reflects that—it’s about movement, belonging, and place. I recently had knee surgery which kept me away from riding as much as I wanted too. But it helped me to rediscover my area. Raised in Colorado, I’ve returned after years abroad, exploring the land again with a different mindset—less transient, more rooted.

Even when I couldn’t ride as much, movement continued. I now explore on foot, skis, or through mountaineering—activities from my childhood. I also joined a ceramics studio and began wheel throwing, a tactile way to stay connected to the earth. It became a creative and therapeutic outlet, and remains a critical part of my story.

I choose materials based on what best supports the concept. For my MFA thesis, I created a sculptural map using wood, inspired by a meaningful place in the Colorado Rockies. I divided a topographic map of the area into a grid and matched each section with a part of my body—like my foot or shoulder blade.

I 3D-scanned those body parts and used a CNC router to carve them into plywood blocks. When assembled, the piece formed a tactile, three-dimensional map—merging personal anatomy with the landscape.

It became a way to explore the intersection of body and place—how we carry landscapes within us and how they shape who we are.

Mostly through trial and error. I’ve been working this way for a long time, so I’ve built up at least a basic familiarity with a lot of materials. I studied art in undergrad, and we were required to take a broad range of classes—wheel throwing, sculpture, printmaking, bookmaking, jewelry, drawing, painting, and other two-dimensional practices. That exposure gave me a wide foundation.

I’ve also worked across various forms of printmaking. For example, there’s a sculpture on my website made from 50 sheets of etched glass, layered together. I had to teach myself how to etch glass to make that piece. So sometimes, new techniques come with the territory. But that’s actually one of the things I love—there’s always something to learn, and building new skills can be a really exciting part of the creative process.

There’s a bird called the Arctic tern, which has the longest migratory pattern of any bird. Every year it flies from the North Pole to the South Pole and back again—about 90,000 kilometers. I was really inspired by this bird because it finds its home in transience. So I decided to create Arctic tern wings scaled to my own body.

I started the project by making one massive wing out of paper. I love using and folding paper in my practice—partly because it stores well, and also because my father is Japanese, and I’m drawn to the idea of origami. I folded each feather individually and hand-sewed them together to give the piece some organic movement. I wanted to ink it, run it through a press to make a giant print, then disassemble it and rework it in different ways. I also love printmaking, which is another practice connected to Asian culture.

Unfortunately, I only finished one wing before the project was derailed. While we were Airbnb-ing our house in the Netherlands, a family stayed there and their child found my art supplies and colored all over the wing. I was devastated and ended up abandoning the project.

Now, about ten years later, I’ve decided to return to it. The project still feels important. But now, instead of being just about transience, it's also about movement in a broader sense—about being active, being rooted, and still finding home through motion. I don’t feel like the project is finished until I revisit it.

I plan to pursue the same idea, but I want to do it better. The first version wasn’t perfect, and I’m still experimenting—especially with how I fold the feathers. This time, I’m working with vellum. It has a beautiful transparency and creates this really nice visual depth. I wasn’t satisfied with the folding technique I used before, but I hadn’t figured out a better method at the time. So that part is still very much trial and error.

I did like the effect of hand sewing the feathers together—it gave the piece a lot of stability while still allowing for movement. That quality of motion is important to me, so I want to preserve that aspect while improving the overall construction. The goal is to refine the execution while keeping the heart of the idea intact.