⚉ About

Bio

Charlene Kasdorf
MA Museum and Gallery Practice, MEd International Education, BFA, Dipl. Graphic Design

Charlene Kasdorf is an advocate for visual literacy and builds creative confidence in children and adults. She grew up in central Canada, where her parents owned a small commercial print shop. Her childhood was filled with industrial printing machines, stationery supplies, and box forts built amongst floor-to-ceiling shelves of paper.

With a background in graphic design, illustration, fine art, and international education, Charlene recently earned a master’s with distinction in Museum and Gallery Practice from UCL Qatar (2020). Her thesis explored how ephemeral drawing-creating builds a sense of self, supported by literature research in the neuroscience of sight and memory, as well as auto-ethnographic research.

Charlene has lived in Qatar for nearly 10 years, and in that time has collaborated on research-driven picture books with museums, institutions, and publishers. She has taught classes and led numerous workshops. In 2021 she launched a participatory drawing initiative that invites live and instinctive character-drawing (sketchy-karakters.com and @sketchy_karakters).

• Charlene learnt to “jog” and collate paper when she was 12 years old at her parents’ commercial print shop.
• Her small high school didn’t offer art classes.
• At 17 she had private art lessons with an established artist.
• Her first job after high school was at a Ford factory.
  After a few months, she was promoted to “auditor”. (There is no visual record of this year.)
• She was a Dorm Head at a boarding school in Switzerland.
• Her weakness is collecting paint swatches at hardware stores.
• Charlene dislikes wearing bowling shoes.