Featured Artist - June 2025
Kathleen Hayes Borkowski
Tell us a little bit about your practice as a maker.
Genius Loci: 5000 Sunsets, 19" x 14", gouache, various papers, thread, blueberry branch, birch bark, 2024
Inspiration for my work tends to come from my immediate experience, my family, where I live, my dreams and memories, as well as the art of friends and artists in my local community. I love being in my studio, which is in an old New England hosiery mill that has been beautifully renovated. My other joys include hanging out with my husband, being a grandmother, being with my artist friends, observing and being in nature, growing plants and traveling.
I often begin a work by writing down a word, phrase or simply drawing lines on the blank paper. Language and letters are then pushed and pulled and used as image or as an energetic element in the composition. Traditional lettering can often be found alongside “weird” lettering in my works.
Where do you thrive? Where do you struggle?
A turning point in my development as an artist came through a 6 month independent study with Laurie in 2011. The culmination of our time together was an alphabet I designed based on marks made in wood from Bark Beetle infestation. Her guidance and coaching helped me to see how to integrate my words and lettering into imagery and to begin to see myself as an artist.
What is one intention you have for your practice this year?
I am currently working on the third book of a series that describes a person or place that has been consequential and transcendent in my life.
Daughters, 80" x 13.5" open, bistre inks, gouache, kozo paper, inkjet copies, 2023