casey ann wasniewski: dirty, fleshy life

Sometimes we think we know something, but we only know it in the most abstract way, which means we may not know it at all. Casey Ann Wasniewski

Wool yarn, horsehair and felt are the materials of choice for fiber artist Casey Wasniewski as she explores beneath the surface of everyday life – underneath the dirty, fleshy places to the space that holds deeper beauty when exposed and understood.  The artist embroiders French Knots with hand-dyed wool, attaching knot after knot to industrial felt.  She then sews the textural pieces into organic-like structures that evoke “contradictory feelings of repulsion, familiarity and attraction.”

My hand and needle punctures, pulls, folds, and shapes the felt intuitively by the knotting process. The yarn is knotted layer upon layer, transmogrifying the fat, luscious, fleshy industrial felt, into something much more mystifying of an obscure nature.

As I look at Wasniewski’s work I quickly realize that the French Knots are brilliant in their role as pixels – blending, standing alone, coming together; the wool gives the pieces the texture I crave; the final form satisfies my attraction to organic structures.