Kate Frazer
 
5082649922
kfrazer1001@yahoo.com
http://www.katefrazer.com
 
STUDIO ADDRESS
665 Orchard Street
New Bedford, MA 02744
 
My preservation is faulty, memory is an abstract animal; color saturates, lines blur. Before you know it the memory you're trying to maintain has become a ghost of its former self. I use color, pattern, the figure, and the self portrait of the stitch to tell a narrative. I create three dimensional objects and environments to make the ghost memories tangible. The abstraction of form and memory lend to an ambiguity which opens up the work to the viewer and allows them to ask questions about what they are seeing.
 
I am a collector of memories. I collect because I feel responsible for my history and my family's history. If I do not collect them they will be lost and belong to no one. Even though I collect these memories, I am haunted by them. My preservation is faulty, memory is an abstract animal; color saturates, lines blur. Before you know it the memory you're trying to maintain has become a ghost of its former self.  I sew because of my grandmother. She sewed love into her children's clothes and grace into her own. I never asked her to share with me the wealth of knowledge that she possessed, before she passed. I sew for my grandmother and my mother and my sister and my daughters-to-be. When I sew I feel like I am speaking with my grandmother and I feel that I am speaking with her mother and her mother's mother. I feel a conversation is being had with every woman in my history, who picked up a needle and thread to express themselves and tell their story. I connect to the craft tradition as both a domestic act and an art historical movement. I sew for the history of women because I am part of that history. I remove these ghost memories from my head and with needle and thread make them manifest to speak about a history, both psychological and emotional. I use color, pattern, the figure, and the self portrait of the stitch to tell a narrative. I create three dimensional objects and environments to make the ghost memories tangible. The abstraction of form and memory lend to an ambiguity which opens up the work to the viewer and allows them to ask questions about what they are seeing. My work is feminine in both perspective and aesthetic and my connections to feminist art cannot be denied, but what I feel my work speaks to most, apart from a political stance, is a life. A life filled with memories of joy and pain, wonder and grief , delicacy and violence. This is what I stitch into my work.