Cat Chow: Second Skin
May 17, 2006 | Levent OZLER
Kresge Art Museum is pleased to present nearly twenty of contemporary artist Cat (Catherine) Chow's personal and poetic garments fabricated from the stuff of daily life.
Her "fabric" may be made of interwoven dollar bills, flat washers, one long zipper, corks, brass rings or rubber O-rings, twist ties, plastic hospital I.D. bracelets, or even dress snaps.
With exquisite craftsmanship, she creates the fabric in units of perfect regularity.
She "often finds this tedious work relaxing," she says.
"I inherited the patience from my Buddhist father and the obsessiveness from my mother." Once Chow has created the fabric, she begins the construction of the garment.
The simple, elegant shaping results in a beautifully conceived and proportioned fluidity in the finished garment.
Cat Chow was born in 1973 and received her B.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University where she became interested in costume design.
In the late 1990s she worked in a theater prop store that specialized in medieval costumes, and she learned how to make chain mail (a type of armour or jewelry that consists of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh).
She cites highly quirky sculptors who use unexpected materials like Tom Friedman and Donald Lipski as inspiration.
She also plays guitar in a rock band
more: artmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/current/catchow/inde (690)
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