“Doing OK?” consists of two thrifted vintage napkins cross stitched with the affirmations "I am OK" and " I am fine" atop a red bandana well-worn in the center. This work centers around issues of mental health, anxiety and the exhausting experience of women mothering, working and creating during a global pandemic.

This work relates to the prompt of PRESSURE. My maternal experiences as a Midwestern mother and artist seem rife with pressures, both exterior and internal. The pandemic laid bare my inability to measure up to these pressures. When I hung up that red bandana, under two failed studio experiments, I thought, “That is how I feel. Worn straight through the middle.” 

I am interested in the point at which mothering becomes untenable. What would exhaustion look like? How can I map the traces of activity and chart the indictors of the failures in maintaining my duty?

Catherine Reinhart is an interdisciplinary artist living and creating in Ames, Iowa, U.S.A. Reinhart creates fiber work and conducts social practice with abandoned textiles around themes of domestic labor, connection, and care.

Read more about Catherine Reinhart.