Artist Statement: KATIE VOTA

What does it mean to make sustainable, queerly-made objects in the Anthropocene era?  Truly, it seems unacceptable to work any other way.  I cannot contribute to the problem through my own creation.  Instead, I work with the cast-offs from larger systems—ready-made fast-fashion garments as well as any cast-offs I find in quantity—transforming them into objects with purpose. This purpose slips and slides along a spectrum of use and art and craft and fashion, sometimes straddling lines, sometimes tearing down walls between categories.   Is a rug a rug? Is it a record of the labor to create it? Or is it a painting after all?  

Through all, I think about ways objects act upon us, give us power, enable us to be our greatest/worst selves.  I’ve come to the conclusion that textile objects are best-situated to work through ideas around identity, as garments are our first line of self-expression.  How do systems of power play into representation and can we create the tools we need to empower ourselves?  Does imagined tactility re-enforce expression?  Our desire to engage more fully stirs deeper longings, allowing us to move past the surface to the ideas and hopes and dreams encased within.