I'm excited to share that my work is in the latest issue of TxP, a Dutch magazine focusing on fiber and textile art! Issue #268 features art incorporating crochet and knit and includes a comprehensive article about the Memory series written by Elganan Jelsma, who is also a visual artist.
An English translation of the article is below.

Katie Schutte creates memories

Doilies full of memories

In the Memory series, the versatile artist Katie Schutte (1984) combines various techniques, including painting, spraying and crocheting. The artist born and raised in the United States was trained as a jewelry designer and uses textiles in addition to metal, enamel and paper. Already during her training, Katie started using old doilies in her work. The beautiful crocheted and lace decorative doilies that everyone used to have at home. The Memory series started with one collection of vintage doilies that she received from family and friends.

Memories
The works in the Memory series do not refer to any specific one memory from Schutte's life. The doilies full of memories are a source of inspiration for her and the final works of art are a representation of how memory works. 'The doilies are intentionally and unintentionally during the creation process changed and mimic how people relate to the past and their own memories: people forget, remember something incorrectly, remember certain parts clearer than others, and the event evolves as it repeated. The works in this series will never are real doilies or even just representations of them, just like our memories never contain the complete and exact version of the events.”

Memories are symbolic, they represent who we are are, where we come from and what we have experienced. Memory can be stimulated in different ways, through a song, a smell, taste or image. That's for everyone is different. Look at the works of Katie Schutte and find your own memories. Viewers of her work told her that it reminds them of topography, maps, landscapes, cells and other microscopic organisms, plants and coral. The abstract compositions, colors and titles act as a kind of psychological inkblot test for the viewer. “What do you see?” The test is based on human tendency to project interpretations and feelings onto inkblots, in this case the abstract compositions.

Method
She sprays onto paper through the doilies. She reuses graphics printing and works a lot with materials received. When she started the Memory series, she knew she wanted the paper act like textile by sewing and crocheting on it. She can influence the manufacturing process through the choice of color, but much is also left to chance. How the paint acts and what remains of the structure of the cloth. She then responds to the work and decides which aesthetic choices still have to be made when she starts sewing and hooks on the paper. 'I start with all the work in the Memory series with the material and respond to the work as I make it.' Because Katie can't control exactly what the paint is on paper does and how it runs out under the cloth, there is a lot of coincidence in her work. She also works a lot with received and found materials, which sometimes limits her use of color. 'I see if I have enough of a color and then decide whether I will use more than one color of thread. This, and the choice where I cast the stitches and what I crochet are the only part of the creation process in which I consciously steer.'

“The works in this series will never be real doilies or even representations of them, just as our memories will never be the complete and exact version of events.”

Inspiration
Katie finds inspiration in her material, but also in the work of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) speaks to her. 'I am very attracted to the colors and shapes of her work. I feel like a lot of our color choices are similar are.' Which Memory work is her own favorite? “I think one of them is definitely Memory XII and I like the round shapes on them Memory XIV." Our memories are more than just moments from our past, memories are an essential part of our identity and form the basis of our existence. Thanks to memories we can relive experiences and learn of mistakes and cherishing moments. The special Memory works by Katie Schutte provide plenty of space for our own associations and memories.

Eight works from the Memory series (one of which will be on display in a show for the first time)
will be included in Echoes of the Mind, a three-person exhibit at the Overture Center in
Madison, Wisconsin. This show will run for a little over three months, with an artist reception on Thursday, July 11th from 5:30pm-8:30pm.