Pizza’s sweater
crochet dog sweater
2024
i was unable to care for pizza a required her to be rehomed
it was devastating
my family has a tradition of sending offspring out into the world with a handmade sweater
she is happily living with another local family and has a dog-brother
IDKWID
(I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING)
site-specific installation with crocheted white acrylic yarn, second installation
2024
same crochet banner thing
used site-specific clothespins mixed with those from the mfa thesis
enjoyed self
with regerts
hurts to look at, grateful it happened, experienced casualties
[various squares]
granny squares of various dimensions, of various fiber types
2022-2024
crochet is a slow craft, which means i think about the project for hours, days, weeks, etc
i bring projects with me to the bar, on the bus, to therapy, to the library, to brunch, everywhere
sometimes the yarn rolls into the sewer and i make a square from it
sometimes i make a square for a husband for christmas and he doesn’t want it
sometimes i change colors mid-row
sometimes i end the square suddenly
sometimes the fiber changes texture after you wash it
crochet panties, various fibers
2023-2024
after top surgery, i realized i had only been crocheting tops
so i wanted to make slutty bottoms instead
but it’s mindful and demure because it’s crochet; again, a slow craft
they were created and debuted at monday night dart night at woof’s where the heat would be turned up and folks got down to their underwear for discounted drinks and play an evening of competitive bar darts
very theraputic after a divorce
[panties+]
[fuck if i know]
MFA thesis
master’s of fine art thesis exhibition
Backspace Gallery, Art Lofts, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2023 (re-photographed 2024)
the finished gallery show documentation felt incomplete, which is as follows
so i photographed everything again in the backyard that i landed in after graduation, which follows that section
there’s a lot of content here, so go slow
this is for me. this is my graduate school experience.
showcased in giant 60x80” prints from a floppy disk camera gifted to me by the most wonderfully nerdy old man i used to work with, they are hung haphazardly with random recycled wood and giant binder clips, hobbled together much like my mental health at that point. i spent time writing on the backs of each photo and continued to update them as i processed my divorce, top surgery, and a professor sexually assaulting and harassing me. i wrote on the walls of the entryway with my fingers, adding a different color every time i finished the phrase
“PROFESSOR LISA GRALNICK EXPOSED HER BARE BREASTS TO ME AS AN ACT OF ANTI-TRANS VIOLENCE.”
i updated the wall during the reception (in red lipstick) to include:
“P.S. Brit got an email that says she sacrificed the integrity of the gallery”
as our department made it extremely clear our work was not welcome or appreciated in these campus spaces
during our receptions, we received emails harassing us about gallery cleanup and the department’s lack of support
brit is my co-collaborator for a lot of my work; we had our MFA theses receptions at the same time to host one big party
you can check out her work here: https://www.brittanyweekleyart.com/
***
in the large white backspace area, i wrote on the walls:
I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW I’M WRITING THIS TOPLESS
I WANT CHANGE
People in power should not be able to fascilitate abuse and violence especially DECADES OF ABUSE
AS OF APRIL 6, 2023 8:08 PM
SHE IS STILL ALLOWED IN THIS BUILDING
LAST WEEK
MARCH 28, 2023
SHE EXPOSED HER BARE BREASTS TO ME AS AN ACT OF ANTI-TRANS VIOLENCE
LAST MAY
SHE RECEIVED $100K FROM THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
the gallery is silent as viewers are welcome to explore the clotheslines of posters of giant blurry photos and read the backs of all my trauma and feelings i’ve kept inside for the last three years.
this show was liberating and as much as there were polarizing perspectives of the work, i’m grateful to have had an opportunity to claim that space as my own
even just for a moment
it’s ok to share your feelings.
next, the documentation in the backyard of an adorable rainbow house i had the pleasure of staying at for about ten months
featuring cameos of pizza the dog and the scene in which i’m photographing, including the raised garden bed
at the end of the lease, unable to figure out where to go with my hoard of animals and artwork, i was inundated with visions of a death by knife above the empty bunny nest
the bunny nest that pizza had alerted me to, had not attacked, and the nest survived an incredible amount of rain in the raised garden bed along with new lint from our home to help the mama bunny reinforce her nest
one bunny passed, taken away from the nest, presumably due to illness
i’m still trying to figure out what all that means
graduation robe made of large granny squares, various fibers
2022-2023
this is the graduation robe i made the last summer of graduate school, which i spent at my gay aunts’ house. it was there that i knew top surgery was a viable future for myself, even if my family disagreed. that summer i would drive back and forth from wisconsin to massachusetts and back again while my ex-husband and i figured out how substances would fit in our marraige.
i was not permitted to enter the room to graduate, greeted with police officers who had heard that i would be showing up in my robe with top surgery scars visible.
i paraded around downtown madison instead.
each panel took about a day to create. they are made out of a variety of fibers from my yarn stash that i had been saving for a “special project.” this was that project.
included: i also crocheted the hood of my graduation ensemble, complete with uv-light-reactive yarn, trans flag colors, vintage rayon that shares a company with a pesticide producer, and carabiner closure
ALIGNMENT
this doesn’t fit me anymore
completed knit and crochet tops from graduate school, various fibers
2021-2022
initial feedback was to perform in them. i couldn’t bring myself to wear them until after i had top surgery.
they fit best on the floor.
Recreation of edward robert hughes’
”Midsummer eve” c. 1908
completed knit and crochet tops from graduate school, various fibers
2021-2022
we love a good homework assignment
this was for an art history class about pre-raphaelite painters
most of whom were some flavor of queer
the conversation i had with UW faculty artist Faisal Abdu’Allah went something like:
me: knitting isn’t as much fun, it’s more boring
faisal: makes sense, it’s a binary. crochet you work in multiple different types of stitches.
genius.
magical thinking
39 crochet swatches hung on 3 lines of clothelines with clothespins, the excess yarn laying underneath, various fibers
2021-2022
representing 39 days in Rogers Behavioral Health OCD partial-hospitalization program.
knit and crochet tops, various fibers
2021-2022
each sweater/top has writing on it:
”i want to believe”
”you can cope” (written upside-down)
”emotionally constipated”
”i’m just sad” (written in large sequins)
”i want to be seen” (written in uv-light reactive yarn)
”i should”
”we can’t talk about that”
personal meme
Human hair crocheted in granny square
2021
This is my hair. It lived atop my head for the last 14 months or so; the approximate length of time I’ve spent in quarantine. During that time, my name and my identity evolved. I came across the term “agender” for the first time and I also grappled with the concept of marriage. Leaving my home to start grad school, I knew the people I’d find myself interacting with would only know me as this version of myself: KT, using they/them pronouns. I felt that the final step in my transformation was to chop off the hair that I had been hiding beneath; hair that helped me present as a person I no longer want to be. But I wanted to thank that hair for all it did for me: it was a canvas, it was safety. I felt that the best way to properly honor that hair and that person I no longer am was to treat it as a piece of artwork; something that I’m truly proud of. My gender journey has been tumultuous and is far from over, but the hair that was my safety rope can now be celebrated as a granny square on my wall.
ode to she/her
AR experience
2020
Affirmation is an augmented reality experience featuring my first cat-son, Klarg. Viewers (who have access to iOS systems) can scan the green QR code above which will direct them to a link to download Adobe Aero, where the experience is hosted. After establishing an anchor, my animation begins to play. Klarg has been rendered as a digital 3D model who jumps up to a plane with 3 different colored buttons. He uses these buttons to communicate to the viewer that he recognizes existing during a pandemic is extremely difficult and mentally/emotionally exhausting. As someone who searches for validation in our reality, I wanted to render a figment of my imagination — my cat-son talking to me — into our reality. There’s been a lot of pressure to utilize the time we have been “gifted” during this pandemic to learn new skills and be as “productive” as possible, whatever that means. Klarg is here to tell you that whatever you’re doing, even if it’s just existing, you’re doing a great job; he’s proud of you; and fuck covid.
affirmations
I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
Site-specific installation with crocheted white acrylic yarn
2020
This is the first project I created during grad school amidst a pandemic. The phrase, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING” has been crocheted in white and strung up on my balcony at me and my now-ex-husband’s first apartment in Wisconsin, which we moved in site-unseen from Massachusetts. We lost our jobs, got married, and migrated from Massachusetts for the first time together. Starting grad school and moving across the country during a pandemic and being isolated from our families was extremely difficult, all the while trying to navigate the social nuances of graduate school with faculty and peers virtually. (and a later autism diagnosis)
AR experience with associated album of instant photos
2020
Arwin consists of small 1.8x2.4” prints that, when scanned by the app, cue an associated video to play just above the image in augmented reality space. The viewer is invited to watch a segment reminiscent of a memory, but the video lasts only for a few seconds or minutes before looping to the beginning while the targeted image is in view. Essentially, these are random flashbulb memories: polished and vivid, but also imperfect by lack of context. There is an element of preciousness to the piece as well--the instant print, when destroyed, is gone forever, along with the ability to access the video in the app. The viewer controls the act of recall via the app, but once the print is lost, so is the memory. Arwin explores ideas related to memory, empathy, and comprehension. To access the videos, the viewer must actively scan the target image (stimulus) and wait while the app begins its recall process. The viewer has control over which memories they skip and which memories they linger upon. However, their lingering can only last as long as the video before it loops back on itself. The act of forcing association and recall is a privilege those without memory repression experience. With Arwin, not only are those moments preserved and organized, but the ability to recall is maintained by way of the app’s computing power, because the mind cannot always be trusted.
arwin
temporary visitation
2018
Although this series is albeit very different than my scans, it maintains common themes in my work: imaginative landscapes and inaccessible worlds. While conducting research into underwater photography, I found myself reveling in the otherworldliness of water: full of graceful movements and mermaid-like forms. I found myself concentrating on capturing the moments I experienced underwater to show my above water brethren and needing to interrupt myself with coming up for air. How beautiful, that the world below water is entirely against our existence; how enticing that we can only stay a few minutes before running back to our normal reality of oxygen. I’ve dreamt of figures and forms floating ever since I can remember and being able to record those images in real time for others to view later is an exquisite experience. I am, once again, able to present a visual for others to relate to and experience, giving my memories and imagination the validity I feel they deserve.
against the wind
2017
Scanning, inherently, is a means of composing seconds and minutes together into a singular, two-dimensional object. That object is born from the combination of three-dimensional life and the passing of time: it is a recording; a documentation. The scanner slices and rearranges time into a flat visual that represents the backside of the scanner’s view; the recording is evidence of time passing. This series is a documentation of the swaying of trees in my mother’s communal backyard. With an extremely long extension cord, I brought my scanner outside for the first time to document the leaves waving in the wind, literally leaving my comfort zone of the indoors for new, undocumented territory. The scanner recorded the leaves as they were presented in that moment and continued to record their new location over and over again as the breeze shifted their positions until the scanner reached the end of its flatbed. I was attempting to utilize this machine to stitch together various moments into a story of where the leaves traveled that evening.
2016
The labor of creating the project Detachment is just as important as the finished images. During the summer of 2014, gentrification displaced my mother, my sister, and me from my childhood home. We had to move in with my sickly grandmother a couple of towns away. A month after the move, we had to put our dog down; two months later, my grandmother passed away from lung cancer. These were difficult months, but I am grateful that we were present to offer care and support to my grandmother and that I was able to spend so much time with her before she passed. The day after my grandmother died, my extended family forced us to move from her house and into an apartment. Once again, I had no sense of place. I felt exposed and vulnerable to the wrath of life, like plants that are continuously susceptible to being uprooted and displaced by human habitation, carelessness, and a desire for a particular kind of landscape design.
I began work on Detachment after I came upon a plant that had frozen to death. I placed the pot in a microwave oven to warm the dirt, uprooting the poor soul from its soil. Its roots were lifeless so I exposed them to the blinding light of my scanner. I had found my new work. During our stay at the apartment, I had begun to collect some small succulents. When they started to overcrowd their pots, I gathered materials to repot them, and used my scanner to expose their roots. Each plant took its turn being ripped from its claustrophobic home, shaken to remove excess dirt, dragged across the glass of the scanner to be dissected by time, and placed into a new, foreign pot. After moving from the apartment to a condo two years later, I scanned my plants again. Some had not survived their initial journey across the flatbed, and some thrived from the exposure. The whole process is very violent and risky for the plant. However, with new surroundings comes the opportunity for new growth, new life. The scans themselves are evidence of growth, decay, survival, exposure, and risk.
detachment
loves me, loves me not
bfa thesis
2015
Loves Me, Loves Me Not is a series of ten 16x24” highly reflective Chromaluxe prints of scanned artificial flowers, some of which were moved as the light passed underneath for a glitching effect. The project explores artificiality, mass production, mirroring, manipulation, and technology; the flowers conveying a sense of a perfect world disturbed by the glitches. Each image has a vibrancy and beauty evoking both a sense of timelessness and otherworldliness. Their dark backgrounds create a highly reflective surface, making the images difficult for the viewer to enter. The surface therefore functions as a plane: a portal looking into a domain of artificial perfection, full of beautiful colors and textures. The reflection of the viewer imposed onto the metal presents an idea of inaccessibility relating to the notion that, as humans, it is essentially impossible to fully relate to and understand one another.
