
If idle hands are the Devil's workshop, then Satan clearly isn't meeting quota at Kate Kretz's house. Her painstakingly intricate embroideries, made of human hair, are at the forefront of "the art form formerly known as craft." In between a major exhibition, Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, at the
Museum of Arts and Design and gallery shows, Kate kindly took the time to answer my most burning questions about her work: Why embroidery? Why hair? Here's what she had to say:
Kate Kretz:
"I am a workaholic: my hands need to be busy all the time. For many years, I painted during the day, and spent my nights making objects, often with sewn components, to decorate my home. Eventually, visiting curators started incorporating the objects into exhibitions alongside my paintings, and I became “a contemporary artist working in craft media”. My various bodies of work in fiber have evolved quite naturally: each time I begin a project; I simply choose the medium that would be most powerful in conveying the concept. With increasing frequency, I reach for the sewing needle over the paintbrush.
"As our world becomes more virtual, work in textiles satisfies a vital human need for the tactile, the sensual, and the handmade. I still love the alchemy of painting, but there is less historical baggage, and more freedom, associated with fiber media. I feel like I am making up my own rules, and, for once, I happen to be in the right place at the right time, because there is a lot of excitement surrounding the use of craft in contemporary art right now. Although it was never a conscious strategy on my part, this choice of media has provided me with tremendous opportunities as of late.
"Embroideries with human hair constitute the perfect language for speaking of neurosis and obsession. Hair is an intimate and delicate, yet potent, medium. It seems perfect for rendering the fragile quality of dreams loaded with dark, swirling imagery. The presentation of my most recent images, in Victorian frames with convex glass, references both mourning pieces of that period and the reliquaries of Catholicism.
"These pieces are unfathomably time consuming and technically difficult to make. Whenever I think that my work can’t get any more painstaking, I find a way to up the ante. With each embroidery, I have reached a point where I question my sanity. I frequently pull out a hair that proves to be too thick or too dark. I can spend 12 hours straight working on an area, and most people would register no discernable difference between the “before” and “after”. The last 2 or 3 weeks, I was icing my wrists each night in order to work the following morning. I will undoubtedly make less than minimum wage on this piece. And it seems that the more work I do, the more needs to be done.
"Why subject one’s self to repeatedly tying tiny knots, threading and rethreading needles with a medium that breaks, slips, and is generally unwieldy?
"Because working in any other medium would be a compromise. Because making these pieces is a defiant act at a time when our most famous artists are overseeing corporations and managing brand identity, without ever touching their materials. The objects that I make gain meaning from the lavishing of time and focus of emotional energy: cathectic art is an increasingly rare gift, offered up to the viewer."
Image: Oubliette II, 2008, human hair embroidery on found linen doily, hand-dyed velvet, convex glass, frame, 9 x 9", 13 x 13” framed. The process of making this piece was documented from January through April on Kate’s daily
studio blog, and it can be seen at Packer/Schopf Gallery in Chicago.
Labels: kate kretz, museum of arts and design, studio crafts, textile art