Kate Kretz | NeedleXChange

Kate Kretz is an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist known for her intricate, time-intensive works that tackle challenging societal issues. We were lucky enough to interview Kate on our Podcast NeedleXChange which you can listen to here.

What is your background as an artist?

I studied in Paris for a while, at École des Beaux-Arts space. I got a BFA in drawing and painting at SUNY Binghamton, where I had a tremendous mentor. After a brief stint in advertising that almost killed me, I took out another loan and went to The University of Georgia and earned my MFA in Painting. I got a tenure track job in Miami and was there for 10 years before leaving to work full-time in my studio.

Fiber entered into my studio practice about ten years ago, and I taught myself all the techniques I know, on an as-needed basis. I am obsessive when it comes to my work, so I do it and redo it till I get it right.

Since you work in many mediums what goes into deciding that you will make a piece in embroidery?

I always ask myself what the piece “needs” in order to be as strong as it can be. My practice is a strange mix of intuition and serendipity, and I will often have ideas for things and not execute them until the universe (or my brain) tells me the perfect way to resolve the piece, sometimes years later.

I have had visions of things that needed to be made and put the work away several times because the concept seemed ridiculous to my rational mind, but I always have to ultimately concede and make it.

My home environment feeds me, and I constantly need to be making things, so I have always created/repurposed/embellished many things for my house… that’s how I started sewing. I was designing pillows for my couch, altering furniture, and constructing small objects, and curators began expressing the desire to include some of these objects in my exhibitions, alongside the drawings and paintings.

Because I am not formally trained, I find embroidery to be one of the most liberating things that I do: I feel that I am just making it up as I go along.

I have decided that there are no rules for me in this medium: I devised a way to do three-dimensional embroidery when my work demanded it, and some of the most recent hair embroideries are actually woven as I embroider, in order to get the effects that I want. I am constantly experimenting and trying to push the boundaries of the medium, not for its own sake, but in service of my vision.

Your work seems to come from a very personal place can you please discuss the role of autobiography and self-portraiture in your work?

My emotional response to people and circumstances around me is so strong that many of my pieces HAVE to be made, I feel like I have no choice in the matter. My work keeps me sane: I honestly believe that it is an addiction, and if I did not make art, I would suffer from a more destructive addiction, or not be here at all.

How does the practice of embroidery affect the conceptual aspect of your work?

I think that the repetitive nature of embroidery is perfect for an obsessive such as myself, and it connects to the earnestness and neurosis in my subject matter. The repetitive act of embroidery seems to be made for calming worry… trying to tie things down, sew them in, make them stay.

Somehow, creating stitches seems like a more physical, deliberate investment of time than painting. Our world is getting increasingly virtual; it’s only natural that people will begin to crave the tactile in a more profound way. I also feel that the type of embroidery that I do (or any handmade, time-intensive work) is an act of defiance in the fast-paced, time-is-money world that we live in.

How do your other works, other mediums, inform your embroidery work?

I think creating work that was more tactile and seductive was a natural evolution from the painting that I was doing around the time that I first picked up a needle. Most of those paintings took me almost a year to make: in addition to a lot of traditional glazing techniques, I was using the paint to replicate stitches in Tapestry and literally weave lace on canvas. I did one painting where the areas of fabric alone took 3 months of solid work to render. One art historian who knows my work very well described my paintings from that time as being “wrought” rather than painted.

The Psychological Clothing Series came about because I was trying to create drawings and paintings about vulnerability, and, at one point, the two-dimensional surface began to feel inadequate. I wanted to go deeper: get INSIDE, so I began to create wearable psychological states that reveal what we normally try to hide.

Some of your work references your role as a mother, can you talk about the experience of making work about this?
Making work about being a mother has been taboo in the art world for a long time, and I am always drawn to doing things that I am told not to do. More importantly, I had been making art for years about emotional vulnerability, thinking that I was putting it all out there, and that I couldn’t be any braver. I realize now that I did not know what I was talking about… the vulnerability and depth of feeling you experience when you have a child blows everything else away. How could you NOT make art about it?  Again I agree, and am so excited to see more and more artists tackling the subject.

I find it amusing that art historians will talk about male artists and how they were influenced by travel to some foreign land, or political/social situations, but one of the most life-changing and powerful experiences of all is rarely discussed. It is a reflection of society’s devaluation of women’s experience in general.

How do you balance being an artist and a mother?  Do you feel that this is a difficulty within the art world?

I lived solely for my art, to the exclusion of all else, for 20 years. I got married late in life, and had my daughter at the last possible moment. I likely would not have had her if I had not already gotten to a certain point in my career: I gave myself permission to have a bigger life. I have undergone profound changes in the past few years, and I would be lying if I said that this transition has not been difficult: I can no longer eat, sleep, read and watch films whenever I want. I miss my busy social life, because something had to give.

Louise Bourgeois said, ”A woman has no place as an artist unless she proves, over and over again, she won’t be eliminated.” I was hell bent on proving that I was not going to disappear after I had a baby, and so I worked especially hard during her first year, creating lots of work (and keeping it “out there”) under some extremely difficult life conditions beyond being a new mother.

I have a very supportive husband who sacrifices to give me the studio time that I need. I make a point of going to the Spring Armory art fairs, Art Basel Miami fairs, and make frequent trips to NYC.  I am ruthless about stealing studio time when I can: late nights, early mornings, padding the babysitter’s schedule by adding a few hours before I go teach so I can be in the studio. My daughter will be in daycare soon, and I am happy that I got to be with her to this extent during her first few years. Plus, she is almost at the age where I can live the fantasy of putting a big sheet of paper on the wall to have her draw alongside me in the studio!

I do wonder why journalists never ask Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst how they balance being an artist and a father!

What is the next direction or step for your work?

The delightful truth is that I have absolutely no idea. I have about 5 things in process right now, some fiber-based, some not. I have begun to integrate the drawing/painting with the fiber a bit more. I am currently doing a piece with thousands of French knots, and a new 3D hair embroidery that is going to go off in a completely different direction, one that may or may not work. (That seems to be a reoccurring theme these days… pushing work to the point where the stakes are higher, and it is demanding so much more of me in terms of problem-solving.)

The art world is so much about branding right now, and I don’t really subscribe to that concept: artists are multi-dimensional beings with thoughts, feelings and interests in a wide variety of things. Every single piece that I do sets up a new challenge for me, either formally, technically, or conceptually. My job is stay true and genuine so that, over time, it will all work together. Over the span of years, I continuously build on many different series of work, I understand that it has made my commercial career difficult, but it’s the only way I can work.

Where can we see your work?

The most current work is always on my Flickr page.

The images eventually make it onto my website, which also contains older work, a statement, a resume and downloadable copies of reviews I also have a blog.

Thank you so much to Kate for taking the time to interview with us, don’t forget, you can check out our podcast interview here!