PLATO

I have found profound significance in the simple act of counting each passing day. Every morning, I take a moment to tally the number of days that have marked my journey through life. As of May 14th, 2024, my count stands at 10,402 days. Each day becomes a new address for my homes I embroider, a placeholder for time and memory. I collect icons from my experiences and false memories. I’m shifting between the true and fake realities that intertwine in my mind. These works become my own versions of postcards. Every day evokes a different feeling, and these serve as montages of myself.

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Growing up amidst the shadows of addiction and grappling with mental health struggles, I sought solace and expression in the vibrant subcultures of Detroit. These influences infuse my work with a raw energy and a longing for escape. In each stitch and each counted day, I find purpose, embracing life’s challenges with courage and grace, one embroidery at a time. Having been on the brink of not seeing it again, I find beauty in the ordinary: ants, plants, skies, stars, driving, days, nights, afternoons.

 

Using a long arm sewing machine in a process typically employed as a finishing technique for quilts, I repurpose the methods and materials of craft. Working in an intuitive manner, I begin with a simple drawing on felt, which is made in one sitting. The immediacy and directness of this process motivates me while providing a medium for a stream of consciousness mark-making. On the quilting machine, the drawing is wound up into a roll that feeds around another tube. Working with only sixteen inches visible at a time, I begin to sew the embroidery together by pulling yarn colors intuitively. This process becomes one of recollection.

 

Each work is a form of casting off and making anew. Moving through abandoned personas that no longer serve me, I mine familiar symbols and popular icons. In this cultivation of image and narrative, I examine my personal history and American subcultures of the early Aughts with humor, nostalgia and romanticism. My artistic sensibilities have been profoundly shaped by the era's vibrant aesthetics, resonant music and overarching cultural ethos. Drawing from personal introspection, I explore the themes of identity, mortality and the enigmatic allure of psychedelia. 

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

 

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

 

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

 

Something that I love about this poem is that I resonate not only with the writer, but with the animal too.

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– Kaylie Kaitschuck

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Kaylie Kaitschuck’s (b. 1995, Dearborn, MI) work has recently been exhibited in solo and two-person exhibitions at PLATO, New York; Gaa Projects, Cologne, Germany; Hiromart Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Baby Blue Gallery, Chicago, IL; Playground Detroit, Detroit, MI; Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and KO Gallery, Hamtramck, MI. Kaitshuck's stitched yarn paintings have been featured in group exhibitions at PLATO, NY; Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI; Center Galleries, Detroit, MI; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; SCOPE MIAMI (Playground Detroit), Miami, FL; NADA, New York; Forum Gallery, Bloomfield Hills MI; KO Gallery, Hamtramck, MI; Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI; Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA; and the Parsons The New School, New York, NY, among others.

 

Kaitschuck is a recipient of the Detroit Artist Talent Fund, The Red Bull House of Arts Microgrant, The Robert C. Larson Art, Design, and Architecture Venture Award, and is published in New American Paintings Midwest and MFA Editions. She lives and works in Detroit, Michigan.