Kathy Mitchell-Garton

Using a variety of materials, including cloth, beads, thread, photographic snapshots, and maps, I explore the patterns and forms that make up the places I inhabit—my dooryard. I was born in California and raised in Colorado; the Western landscape--its specific vegetation and land forms -- is integral to my work. What does it mean to inhabit a place, to breathe it in and allow it to be expressed through my hands, in color, texture, pattern? This is the question in the back of my mind as I work. 

The meditative (i.e., slow!) quality of hand-stitching and bead embroidery allows for time to contemplate the images I work with, to understand them on the level of touch, to see associations and their formal qualities. I’m also interested in beauty and the possibilities of beauty in overlooked places—a desiccated leaf might be as beautiful as a flower in full bloom if we drop our judgments.

The beads and stitching create three-dimensional textures and patterns that function to draw in the viewer and to foster an intimate relationship with the work. My hope is that the work encourages close viewing and contemplation of surface and image, and that it creates places where we can slow down, pay attention, and appreciate what’s right under our noses.