Kathryn Knudsen is a Utah-based artist and teacher.
Creativebin: When did you start making art?
Kathryn Knudsen: I have been making art ever since I can remember. My mother is an artist and so it was always present in our home.
CB: You use many different mediums, including quilting and stitching ... where did you learn how to sew and what inspired you to make art in this way?
KK: I learned to sew from my mom. I've always liked to do it, but it's only been the last two or three years that it started showing up in the work. The first time the stitching showed up was in a piece called "four years old"; I was working on a drawing of myself at the age of four, and after some time became so frustrated that I tore the entire drawing into tiny little squares. After the fact, I began rearranging the squares and from then stitched them all back together. Still being frustrated with the piece I proceeded to give it a bath, bleach it, iron it and then stitch it again to reinforce the areas that had pulled apart from all the abuse. It was after this experience that I started a series called "FIX". All the paintings, quilts or drawings in the series, went through a tremendous amount of abuse before then being healed, or "fixed".
CB: Where do you draw inspiration from?
KK: I think a lot of what drives me, is just the need to make something. It calms me to be able to create things. Sometimes it's just purely therapeutic, other times the aesthetics become just as important and I don't feel satisfied just with just the cathartic aspect.
CB: Do you feel that your art tells a story?
KK: It definitely tells a story to me. It's interesting to observe reactions to my work. Sometimes people focus entirely on the aesthetics and seem to just enjoy the work without any analyzation. Other times people feel there's something more to the work and ask a lot of questions.
CB: You've had several exhibits of your work. How have you gone about getting your art out there?
KK: I don't know if I would say several. It's a difficult thing to think about getting art out there. It's hard to know where "out there" is.
CB: You were on the popular TV show
What Not To Wear. Has that experience affected your art or your career in any way?
KK: The show has actually brought a lot of attention to the art. I get quite a few emails each week with inquiries about my art or my hair. If anything the show gave me more opportunities to talk about the work, which has been a great thing.
