32 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 9-15, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com ART Karen Owen doesn’t ask permission. Some evening—without warning—a wall on Forest Avenue will bloom with color, a flock of birds will wheel across the library’s façade or a 10-foot bridesmaid will appear against the stone by Jewell Park. There’s no flyer, no city permit, no scheduled start time. Owen simply shows up with a projector and a battery pack, waits for dusk to settle in and turns whatever building is nearby into a living canvas. Passersby stumble into it by accident, and that’s the whole point: the delight of a stranger looking up and seeing animated art. Owen has spent nearly 50 years as an inside player through technology’s changes. She ended up chairing the digital technology department at San Diego’s Mesa College, where she built new media curricula, wrote California’s official discipline for web development and helped firefighters track a 2004 wildfire in real time using GIS. When her husband died, she retired and changed her path. Retirement didn’t last. Owen moved back to Pacific Grove, the town she grew up in, remarried to a local artist and joined the board of the Pacific Grove Art Center. While planning the center’s 50th anniversary in 2018, she stumbled onto augmented reality projection mapping and fell for it completely. Soon she expanded into AR triggered by QR codes, letting a phone camera unlock animated elements layered over an artist’s original work. What makes her projects distinct is collaboration. She animates a quilter’s patterns, a friend’s foldable storybook, a photographer’s butterflies—always checking first with the original artist so nothing feels taken rather than shared. The movement, color and transformation all come from shaders, tools she manipulates by hand to make ice crack or fog roll through a stand of trees. Owen now serves as president of the PGAC’s all-volunteer board, an organization that has run continuously since 1969. Her ambition these days is less about her own work than about handing it off—training the next generation, building relationships with AR software companies willing to offer the center free licenses and waiting for lighter AR glasses that could make this technology part of everyday life. For now, it stays small and unannounced: a projector, a quiet park bench and whoever happens to be walking by at dusk. Visit karenowen.org and pgartcenter.org to learn more. DANIEL DREIFUSS Augment It Pacific Grove resident Karen Owen turned her knowledge of computer technology into public art. By Agata Popęda Karen Owen with paintings on display at the Pacific Grove Art Center. Her own work is less traditional—and not as fixed. Carmel Tasting Room San Carlos & 7th • 831.626.WINE (9463) Estate Winery & Tasting Room 1972 Hobson Ave, Greenfield SCHEIDVINEYARDS.COM Enjoyfriends. sips. Pouring daily from 12pm OCEAN AVE 7TH AVE 8TH AVE MISSION ST Carmel Plaza Sunset Community & Cultural Center SAN CARLOS ST DOLORES ST
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