Yarn-Making with Wolf Hair, 2020
Down fur from a half wolf- half husky canine
Time-lapse self portrait capturing myself spinning the down (inner warmth layer of fur) from a half wolf half husky dog. I had read in old research books about ancient spinners using wolf down. The yarn is as soft as cashmere, but has a most familiar/unfortunate oder when wet! Source material: cast-away brushings from a neighbor's dog.
"The Art of Discovery" 2017
KIN's Student Art Exhibit
KIN student collaboration. Features work of 4 to 11 year old students in our program. Students were taught the fundamentals of scientific illustration. They then chose a species to highlight and research.
Exhibit featured companion facts and engagement questions along with a "Naturalist Night" style presentation where students shared "species stories."
Project designed, implemented, and curated by me as Executive Director. Exhibit and Poetry Reading featured at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
"The Forest We Walk In" 2018
KIN's Student Poetry Anthology
KIN student collaboration. Features work of 4 to 11 year old students in our program. Students were exposed to work of famous authors, and various poetic formats and given space to explore poetry-as-field-journal.
Project designed, implemented, and curated by me as Executive Director. Exhibit and Poetry Reading featured at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
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Kathryn Jaffe
Baskets, 2019
(Left) Reeds from banks of Corcoran Lagoon, (Right) Seaweed from Mitchell's Cove
Baskets made from locally materials wild-harvested in Santa Cruz, Ca. One from the freshwater/brackish ecosystem, and one washed up from the ocean forest.
Natural Dye Class, 2020
Organic Japanese Indigo, Salt, Organic Silk, Oxalis, Marigold
Taken from a class I taught on natural dying using locally grown indigo, oxalis, and marigold. Pigmentation of fall in Santa Cruz.
Handwoven Garment 1, 2018
Organic, California grown Heirloom Variety (Un-dyed) Brown Cotton, Organic Naturally Dyed Linen
Pattern taken from the Lithuanian Folk Art Institute. Retracing folk art roots of my ancestors from Trakai, survivors of the Holocaust, from a town whose borders have changed hands many times since the diaspora.
Split-Woven Huipil Top, 2018
Organic, CA grown heirloom naturally-colored cotton, natural brown, natural cream
4 Treadle weaving, woven in split. Based on style of traditional cotton huipiles in the Yucatec Mayan communities where I lived and studied. This woven top was hand sewn into plain cotton fabric to create a blouse/garment. The weaving or embroidery pattern on the top typically indicates the town or region one is from. I chose a Lithuanian weaving pattern and made it my own, in honor of my grandfather's heritage and in homage to the communities who hosted me as a learner and comrade throughout my stays/studies in the Yucatan.
Shearing Navajo Churro, 2022
Digital Media
Documentation of shearing process from wrangling to release-of-fleece. I use electric corded hand shears to be able to shear in many different unpredictable shearing set-ups, as small farmers usually do not have safe infrastructure for shearers. Navajo Churro sheep are a heritage breed, brought to the Americas from the Spanish Missionaries and have since become synonymous with Indigenous textiles and lifeways. Today - the Navajo people still depend on sheep for many aspects of their livelihood. Living with sheep remains a fervent act of resistance against large Coal industry hoping to displace the Navajo people from their homelands. Killing their sheep has been part of the targetted attack against the Dine, or Navajo people. Keeping this breed alive, and reviving market value for the wool, is an act of solidarity.
Horsehair Weaving 1: Detail, 2021
Organic, California grown heirloom naturally-colored cotton, horsehair
The horsehair used in this piece was acquired by the Ogala and Rosebud Sioux and the Jicarilla Apache Tribes as part of grooming rituals after a horse has passed on.
Design: Herringbone Mixture by Helen Schobinger, Date Unknown, Likely Pennsylvania-German ancestry
The finished textile features raw horse hair edges, which may appear grotesque. They capture a strange honesty; an intersection of grotesqueness and beauty - what it is to be in a body in those moments between form and formlessness. The body is both disgusting and miraculous. It is our vehicle to experience life, and is all that we leave behind.
Horsehair Weaving 1 On Loom, 2021
Organic, California grown heirloom naturally-colored cotton, horsehair
Description same as above for Horsehair Weaving 1.
Calochortus albus
Kate Shearing, 2022
Left - shearing a Merino sheep in Soquel, CA. Right - the fleece taken from just one Rambouillet sheep, Gaviota, CA.
Sheep and goats were among the first animals to be domesticated by humans. The relationship has been sheep and humans can be traced back over 10,000 years, with the first evidence of spinning dating back 4,000 years. Domesticated sheep have been bred out of their ability to shed their wool, and now depend on human intervention for health. Shearing is one aspect of agriculture that has never been mechanized. Something to consider is that every wool sock you wear was shorn off of a sheep by a human!
The Craft of Remembering, 2020
Process/Documentary Film, Start to Finish Garment Making
I made this film in 2020 as my grandmother, Hope Mosheim Jaffe, was dying of COVID. She had always been a proficient fiber artist - knitting sweaters and blankets for everyone in the family. Her parents had escaped the Holocaust and moved to New York. Her father supported the family by making coats. There is a lineage of garment making in my family. One of the deep sadnesses of my life is that by the time I realized my desire to learn from her, she had developed dementia and could no longer remember how to knit. I wanted to honor my lineage of garment makers, and also show my grandmother that she is quite literally re-membered - that she lives on inside the very members of my body. To complete this scarf, I sheared East Fresian sheep in Santa Cruz - a german breed to honor her german heritage. For my warp, I used organic Oaxacan heritage/naturally colored brown cotton. The weaving pattern is from Northern Germany in 1835. I chose a song in Yiddish, her first language, as the musical backdrop for the film. She was able to see the film three days before she passed away.
Handwoven, Naturally Dyed Rug, Teotitlan del Valle, 2019
Wool, Natural Dyes: Cochineal, Walnut Hulls, Indigo x Marigold
Portrait of my finished rug, and mentor Leanor Bautista Lazo, mother to my friend and collaborator Samuel Bautista Lazo. All yarns used were dyed using locally sourced natural materials, using ancient dye recipes used by Zapotec weavers for many generations. Each community in the region became specialized in one aspect of textile production during Spanish conquest. Teotitlan de Valle is known as the "Weaving and Dyeing Village." Nearly all village members have at least one loom in their house. You are first a weaver, and then you are a .... (carpenter/baker/farmer)....
Textile tourism has had a mixed effect on the region - both highlighting robust intact indigenous lifeways and degrading them. Samuel has worked hard to keep tourism participatory and connective, rather than voyeuristic and extractive. Together, Samuel and I have taught 4 workshops in California, sharing his perspectives and cultural stories as a Native Zapotec man, alongside the techniques of his village and the lore in each of the patterns and colors.
Fabric Making, 2022
Organic, California grown heirloom naturally-colored cotton, natural brown, natural cream
4 Treadle weaving, study in Lithuanian cloth/pattern-making, fabric for tea ceremony.
English Ivy Remediation/ Basketry, 2017
English Ivy Vines
Students helped local neighborhood in removal invasive English Ivy Vines. Students were then taught how to use the vines to make baskets. Baskets were used for foraging calendula and plantain for medicine making. Two students on the left demonstrate the intact plant (source material). Students on right display stripped vines and finished basket.
PROJECTS: >>> the titles are links <<<
"KIN In Your Own Words", 2019
Kids in Nature Students reflecting on why time in Nature, and kinship are important to our health and the health of all beings.
Footage taken and interviews conducted by various KIN Staff members. Final edit by me.
Summer Weaving, 2022
Organic, CA grown heirloom naturally-colored green cotton, flax, camel wool, sheep's wool, natural dyes
Woven onto a warp of heirloom green cotton is a collection of stories. Stories in stripes from bottom to top: hand-spun flax grown on a friend's farm in Pennsylvania, hand-spun camel hair I collected off of bushes in the Negev dessert of Israel, hand-spun Navajo churro wool from sheep I sheared on Back Ranch Road, hand-spun wool dyed with Dyer's Polypore mushrooms foraged on Upper Campus, hand-spun wool dyed with Japanese Indigo grown in my garden in Santa Cruz. Each element of the weft was created by me and is a record keeper of the many elements of my summer.
Home Grown Japanese Indigo on Organic Silk, 2022
Organic Japanese Indigo, Salt, Organic Silk
Taken from a class I taught on natural dying using locally grown indigo. Focus on using the salt-rub technique to extract pigment. Class traced roots of Indigofera genus throughout cultures, ecologies, and time, and explored the heavy implications the clothing industry has on waste, pollution, greed and environmental justice.
Artist Portfolio
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"KIN Spring(s) Project" 2021
KIN's Guide to the Natural History of the Karst-Spring-Fed Waterway, Westlake Pond
KIN student and staff collaboration. Written guide is a product of collaborative work between myself and colleagues Sophie Lev and Kyla Roessler.
Free ecological/historical/narrative field guide to Westlake Park, part of a series of Karst-fed spring networks, carrying water from UCSC throughout the westside of Santa Cruz - making their way to Neary Lagoon and Cowell's beach - connecting the forest, freshwater, lagoon, and oceanic ecosystems.
Students led educational walking tours for the public. This is perhaps the work I am the most proud of in my entire portfolio.
Project designed, implemented, and curated by me as Executive Director. Self published, and free online.
"Our Place: A Natural History of the Overlooked" 2019
KIN's Field Guide to the Common Plants and Animals around Santa Cruz
KIN student collaboration. Features work of 4 to 11 year old students in our program. Students were taught the fundamentals of scientific illustration, field journaling, and storytelling.
Emphasis was placed on accessibility: how do we make this book free, readable to all ages and education levels, and represent species that bodies of all abilities can readily see outside their home.
Project designed, implemented, and curated by me as Executive Director. Self published, and free online.