Katie McCabe
she/they
Norwich, Vermont, USA
Katie McCabe is a multidisciplinary maker, teacher, and community builder. They are currently living and teaching jewelry classes in Vermont, with a transition to Chicago on the horizon to pursue tap dance and explore different ways of being in community. Katie uses creation as conversation with those around her, making mostly gifts, trades, and songs, and she is always on the hunt for deeply aligned collaborators in music, metals, dance, puppetry, event planning, and whatever else you might want to make together.
“This bolo is both note-to-self and in-your-face, a meditation and a proclamation. When I wear it, I witness the viewer go through waves of reactions as they lean in to make out the low-contrast letters. First: shiny, vibrant, pretty! Then: “kill.” A sense of violence overcomes them, familiar and sickening at once. “Kill the cop.” This can offend some, often leading to an immediate confrontation, or at least a quiet reckoning. Finally: “inside of you.” A tender reflection, a sharp turn in focus. With each person I witness along this arc, I must reconsider my own relationship to violence.”
How does your work relate to the theme of flourish(ing)?
“This piece draws from the wisdom that we must pay attention to where the colonizer lives inside of us, the ways in which we police one another. In order to flourish, I wholeheartedly believe we have to not only identify the evils of our enemies, but also the ways they manifest in ourselves, the ways we’ve been propagandized or tricked or numbed into perpetuating injustices. I could spend all day pointing out what those in power are doing wrong, but if I haven’t spent that same energy on self-critique, would I be any different in a situation of such power? There are many levels on which we must fight this fight, and I don’t think any one is more important than the rest, but I strive to remember—and surround myself with people who help me dig into—the ways I recreate the problems I bemoan, so I can flourish without wasting time on some high horse."
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Francely Flores
"HELL BENT", "Champlevé enamel on oxidized copper, brass findings, silver rivets, 4.5” x 3.5”, 2024"How does your creative practice allow you to flourish (grow, thrive, blossom)?
“A mentor told me recently to hide my politics when applying to jewelry jobs, which made me laugh out loud—how would that work, have you seen what I make? Not that it’s all overtly Political, but rather that it’s obligatorily unfiltered, a direct manifestation of whatever words my child self is screaming inside me right now. Sometimes that’s “Orange next to the red! Squares! More squares!” and sometimes it’s “oh my god Isr4el has killed dozens of kids already today and I’m over here about to go teach some fifth graders to make wire rings and I need more than my keffiyeh draped around me to hold this right now and keep from crying at how all kids deserve the world.” The sensitive, earnest, intuitive voice in my head needs a place to roost, somewhere it can recuperate when I have to harden off and enter the world and pay attention to other things. This is what my work is for; if I make a home for those feelings in jewelry or song, I know my heart is protected and I am free to flourish, to take on whatever comes my way.”
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Francely Flores
As a queer+ artist, what would you like to see and/or what do you need in order to flourish during this time?
“Thanks so much!!! You all do amazing work!!”
“To flourish in these end times, I need a hell of a family. A big, sprawling, neurodiverse crew of queers and weirdos, people who care and people who’ve been othered. I’ve been leaning heavily on artistic collaboration as a tool to forge connection despite widespread isolation and force us to make time for each other; somehow, no matter how the day has gone, band practice will always break me from the doom scroll and carry me through. In the metals world, it is spaces like the Queer Metalsmiths family that inspire me. Groups like this can easily become a community in name only, united around an aesthetic more than an ethic, yet I can tell from things like how we boost one another’s work that we mean it, we want to be here for each other whether it comes naturally or not. It has induced great growth and great peace in my life to embrace concepts like patience and restorative justice in this context, understanding that family is complicated and messy, but I’d rather be in the throes of a tough conversation with my loved ones than high on the destructive thrill of giving up on someone too soon.”
Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Simon Leung
[queerphoria]v4 @ ECU Symposium
