"The Final Word", 2012, embroidery on black cotton velvet, 20 x 16"

Looking for Fiber-Based Work on The Subject of Motherhood

Seeking examples of work in fiber-based media on the topic of motherhood for a paper to be delivered at the 2012 Textile Society Conference in Washington, D.C. Artist Kate Kretz will be delivering a lecture entitled "The Final Art Taboo: Identity Politics of Motherhood".

Female artists have gained some ground over the past few decades, but there are still unspoken rules remaining: artists who happen to be mothers tend to keep it quiet lest they be written off, and heaven forbid they make art on the subject. While art historians have always studied and noted the influence of travel, friends, and milieux on the work of male artists, the most profound and life-altering experience of all has been ignored in these discussions of creative inspiration, because it is an exclusively female phenomenon. This paper will feature work done by cutting edge contemporary textile artists who have artistically “come out” as mothers, addressing the topic with humor, depth, and sometimes, shocking candor. Fiber, a medium that references protection, nurturing, and other motherly attributes, serves as the perfect vehicle for art evoking the complex nature of contemporary motherhood.

Please email website links or up to 3 jpeg images to kkretz4art@aol.com by March 31st.

Kate Kretz earned a certificate at The Sorbonne and a BFA at the State University of New York at Binghamton before receiving her MFA from University of Georgia.

Exhibitions include the Museum of Arts & Design, Van Gijn Museum, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Wignall Museum, Katonah Museum, Frost Museum, Fort Collins MOCA, Telfair Museum, Fort Lauderdale Museum, the Museo Medici, as well as Lyons Wier Ortt & 31Grand Gallery in NY, Chelsea Galleria and Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in Miami, and Packer/Schopf in Chicago.

She has received the NC Arts Council Grant, The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, The Florida Visual Arts Fellowship, and a Millay Colony Residency. After working as an Associate Professor and BFA Director at Florida International University for ten years, she recently moved to the Washington, DC, area. Kretz currently works in her studio while giving workshops and lectures at various universities.

Her work can be seen at http://www.katekretz.com, on Flickr, and Facebook.

"Your Fragility....", 2010, mother's hair from gestation period embroidered on child's garment, velvet, 15 x 16".

Upon the occasion of my daughter's birth, I became almost agoraphobic, irrationally figuring that, if we never left the house, nothing bad could ever happen to her.

This piece, made within her first six months of life, is a simultaneous invocation for her safety, and a confession of my own newly hyperbolized emotional vulnerability. The hair used is that which was on my head during the time that I dreamt of her, during the time that I carried her. Like rings of a tree, a length of hair embodies the passage of time, carrying a discernible record of an organism's extreme life experiences.

The repetitive act of embroidery seems to be made for calming worry... trying to tie things down, sew them in, make them stay.
Embroidering with hair possesses its own unique intensity: each barely perceptible stitch is like a rosary bead, marking a tiny but ardent prayer whispered over and over.

"Heart Center", 2008, 21" round, hand dyed velvet, standard & 3D embroidery, batting, taffeta, convex glass, frame.