MFA Funding Indie Go-Go Campaign

My Indie Go-Go campaign is now live.

MFA Funding Pitch from Filmhaus Grafik on Vimeo.

The long and short of it is that Graduate School is an expensive endeavor. I want my MFA because I believe it will make me a stronger artist and more able to be competitive in the contemporary art world. I want my MFA so that nothing can stand in my way of getting a full time teaching position when I decide that is to be part of my art practice. I want my MFA so I can get some focused critique of my work and build a group of peers that I'll be able to rely on in my future artistic life. While these things are important, it's unrealistic to ask artists to take out loans equal to those of medical students.

SAIC's Fiber & Material Studies program is the best textile program in the country. I'm told it's the most difficult department to get into at the school, and here I am, one of 11 incoming graduate Fibers students. I can't turn down this opportunity, and yet I'm faced with taking on more debt in an economy that shows no sign of creating jobs for all of us oh-so-educated 20-somethings. This is where you come in. Crowd source funding offers you the unique opportunity to fund things you believe in and helps support people and ideas in a way that has a direct impact.

I want to thank you ahead of time, for taking an interest, for your contributions and support, or for taking five minutes out of your day to take a look at my site or to spread the word. As with all things collaborative, I can't do this without a community of people to back me up.

A life update

So things are about to get real busy...

I'm going to be attending SAIC for my MFA in Fiber & Material Studies this fall!

I've got two upcoming shows to announce:
“Construction” Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN, June 7th-Aug 3rd, opening on June 14th from 6-8
"Black Willow” Paperish Mess Gallery, Chicago, IL, TBD August/Sept 2013

I'm re-designing my website... (for now you can find the preview version here). After it's live, it will go back to being at my domain, www.katievota.com

I've now got a twitter... You can follow me if you like?

AND! I'm starting a crowd-source funding campaign to help me pay for Grad School! The plan is to go live May 6th! I'm aiming to raise $3,000 to help me not have to take out private loans to pay for school. (more info is upcoming)

(on a side note I'm considering re-starting my etsy with completely different things for sale this time, but in what time I will manage to do this I have no idea...)

Here's a picture of a cool lichen:

The Art of Plant Micrography

The fabulous Justin Ray just profiled my new art(collab) project on Complex! Check it out HERE.

If you want to see the full project, I'm using collabfinder-- check it out too.

New applications for Madder

This article is so cool!

"Birch Tree Forest" Installation

As promised (though late, sorry about that, gradschool apps got in the way).

Official nice image from my Birch Tree Forest installation.

Madder and Bedstraw

I have new plants!

This one is Lady's Bedstraw (a relative of French Madder). It gives clear yellow from its tops and oranges and salmons from its roots!

These are my madder! They give lovely reds and rusty oranges.

Of course, it takes 3 years for all these plants' roots to mature... So, I'll let you know in 2015 how the colors come out.

"Birch Tree Forest" Installation

My newest art installation, "Birch Tree Forest" opened at the artLab space @ Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, MI on July 27th. It will be up through Sept. 3rd!



For this installation, I wanted to take the feeling of being in a birch forest and bring it into the gallery-- the look, the sounds, the way light filters down to you... This idea began over a year ago, while I was in Michigan working with Meadow Brook Theatre. I had this clever notion to make paper birch trees out of paper. It worked to a point, but the "trees" didn't really stand up on their own. They felt they needed to be a part of something larger. I came back to the idea during my residency with ISLAND (Institute for Sustainable Learning, Art, & Natural Design) in 2011, when I was actually in a place that had birch forests. It wasn't just the beauty of the trees that kept coming back again and again to capture my interest, but the stillness of the forest, the bird sounds, summer cicadas, wind rustling through the branches, and the crunch of leaves under my feet. This over-all "feeling" of a forest lodged its self somewhere in the back of my mind, lurking in wait for that perfect opportunity to be realized.







Finished wall, a job well done.


Now onto the trees....






Starting to look like a forest...






And, artist talk... go.


I would just like to point out that that older man in the red shirt has a leaf on his shoulder from where we were earlier throwing them in the air like children.


I'll have photos from the opening and final installation for you asap!