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CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF CREATIVE EXCELLENCE 1873 — 2023

Katlyn Brumfield

1. Matrilineal_Thread — Matrilineal Thread, 2021
Magnolia leaves, quilting thread, wood
32”x 84”x 36”

2. Matrilineal_Thread_detail — Matrilineal Thread (detail), 2021
Magnolia leaves, quilting thread, wood
32”x 84”x 36”

3. Heirloom_Herbarium — Heirloom Herbarium I, 2020
Magnolia leaf, quilting thread, coverlet
3.5”x 8.5”

4. brachiopoda — Brachiopoda, 2020
Fossilized brachiopods collected from Westfork Otter Creek, Madison County, KY
54”x 54”

5. FUNERAL_FOR_GREEN — Funeral for Green, 2021
Birch tree, eggshells, quilting thread, antique buttons, coal dust
10’x 4.5’x 5’

6. Funeral_for_Green_detail — Funeral for Green (detail), 2021
Birch tree, eggshells, quilting thread, antique buttons, coal dust
10’x 4.5’x 5’

Katlyn Brumfield

(American b. 1992)

My work weaves together Appalachian folkways, generational memory, and geologic history to give form to the ineffable experience of ecological grief. I use feminine craft traditions drawn from the agrarian life of my maternal great-grandmother to transform bioregional materials into relics of time and place. This contemplative and repetitious labor becomes an act of ritual mourning, honoring the loss of wild places and the land-based communities that imagined them as a sacred homeplace. By situating knowledge of ecological catastrophe in narratives of local experience, I explore the personal dimensions of global crises and reveal the link between environmental degradation and the erosion of cultural identity.

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