Catherine Reinhart
FED, French Knots on Found quilt block, 12" x 12" x 20", 2018
CATHERINE REINHART Catherine Reinhart is an interdisciplinary artist living and creating in Ames, IA. Reinhart creates fiber work and conducts social practice with abandoned textiles around themes of domestic labor, connection, and care. She received her BFA in Integrated Studio Arts - Printmaking and Fiber in 2008 from Iowa State University. In 2012, she completed her MFA in Textiles from the University of Kansas. Reinhart exhibits her work locally and nationally. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards. These include a 2015 Personal Development Grant from the Surface Design Association, and Art Project grants from the Iowa Arts Council in 2016 & 2019. Her work is included in the Southern Graphics Council Print Collection and Archives at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, Mississippi, and the Print Department Permanent Collect at Kyoto, Japan. Catherine has served as a selected panelist on “Visualizing Place: A Conversation with Visiting Artists Featured in the Power of Place”, Power of Place: KU Alumni Exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, KS, and “ Figuring it Out: Truths of being successful” held in conjunction with the Surface Design Association’s 2019 Conference & Future Tense 2019 exhibition in St. Louis, MO. Her work has been included in the 2015 Surface Design Journal. Reinhart has attended several invitational artist residencies including the 2018 Pentaculum at the Arrowmont School for Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN. She has been named a 2020 Iowa Artist Fellow, a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Terrain Residency in Springfield, IL, and an inaugural recipient of the Alex Brown Foundation Artist-in-Residence for Fall 2022.
The Collective Mending Sessions is a series of socially engaged workshops led by the artists and centered around collectively mending a quilt. Since 2018, the project has had 100+ participants contribute stitches to abandoned quilt from the artist's childhood. The aims of the project are to educate participants about sustainable textile processes, and cultivate care for cloth and community by building relationships between the artist and stitchers.
“The project, in concept and execution, is a beautiful, multi-layered metaphor for the work that needs to happen to mend the political, social, and economic divisions in our nation. Reinhart has a long history working with textiles in her studio practice and continually brings work off the walls and into the hands of the audience; building community through commonality” -Sharon Stewart, community partner, Reliable Street.
Images: 1-3: The Collective Mending Sessions. 4: artifact: shirt, fiber art - free motion stitching, 18" w x 15.5"h, 2020. 5:. E.V.R. 03.13.2020 | M.R.R 03.13.2020, sculpture the heights of my children, EVR 50" h 5" w x 5" d MRR 35.75"h 5" w x 5" deep, 2020. 6:. artifact: undies, fiber art - free motion stitching, 15.5" w x 19"h, 2020