Kate's Artist Statement

Lately I've been fascinated with translating ordinary objects found in everyday life into unexpected materials.  (For example, I made an extensive series of contraptions entirely out of cardboard, then gave each the ability to fulfill an impossible task. Here is a cardboard typewriter that will allow you to edit your life, correcting any mistakes that torment you.) 

 I see my work as an attempt to create an alternate universe, where artifacts like this typewriter are commonplace.  It is a collision between idealism and realism.  By making these machines and assigning them an impossible function, I point out the flaws in our world and simultaneously realize that only magic can fix them.  Yet somehow, the mere act of summoning these pieces into existence gives me a simple kind of hope.  That must be why I insist so firmly that this typewriter can actually erase mistakes.  Though I'm interested in continuing this series during the coming year, I want to make sure that I'm not merely recycling ideas.  I want to take it further and be ambitious, especially where scale is concerned.