Katherine relocated to Chicago from her home town of Oxford, Ohio, in 2006 after graduating from Miami University with a BA in French and minors in Anthropology and Linguistics. After moving to Chicago, Katherine spent over a decade working in non-profit programs where she frequently engaged in artmaking and craft with children and youth. These experiences led her to pursue coursework in studio art and psychology through the City Colleges of Chicago before eventually applying to SAIC’s Masters of Art Therapy and Counseling program. Katherine lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood with her husband and two children. She is a self-taught fiber artist and emerging art therapist.
Unsettling care (2021) is an art-based autoethnographic exploration of the roots of my own understanding of “care” and “help.” Using excerpts from my high school writing and documents and objects from my family archive, I examined the ways in which my identity as a “helper” and provider of “care” are rooted in a patriarchal, white supremacist and settler colonial society. Through a process of embroidery, quilting and garment making, I considered the influence of race and gender on my experiences of giving and receiving care. Works in the installation include Apron: 1924 (2018), Memory box (2018), Christening gown (2018), …And also her sister (2020) and Family quilt (2020). In Apron: 1924 (2018), I used text from Virginia’s 1924 “Racial Integrity” law, an anti-miscegenation law that was passed the year of my grandmother’s birth, to reflect on the origins and function of white femininity. …And also her sister (2020) uses text from Harriet Jacobs’ autobiographical Incidents in the life of a slave girl (1861) on two embroidered garments made for a “Topsy” doll I found in my grandmother’s basement. Family quilt (2020) juxtaposes my own words about care with images and documents that bring my ideas about care into question. Together, these pieces are a reflection on the racialized and gendered nature of caring roles and my own relationship to the systems of oppression that are often perpetuated in the name of “care.”
Image 1: Apron: 1924 (process image). 2018. Cotton
Apron: 1924 (process image). 2018. Cotton
Family Quilt. 2020. Cotton, cotton polyester thread and ink
...And also her sister. 2020. Cotton and cotton polyester thread
Unsettling Care. 2021. Installation with fibers, found furniture and video projection 
Unsettling Care. 2021. Installation with fibers, found furniture and video projection Unsettling Care. 2021. Installation with fibers, found furniture and video projection.