Katrina Perdue

Crosstown Arts presents the opening reception for “Mending in a State of Abundance” by Katrina Perdue.

November 18, 2022
6-8 p.m.
Crosstown Arts Galleries
Free and open to the public

“Mending in a State of Abundance” explores the emotional and physical labor of repair, offering an alternative response to the modern realities of material excess. Through slowly mending both found and personal objects by hand, textile artist Katrina Perdue investigates connections and relationships between sentimental and material worth, surplus and enough, holding on and letting go. 

Throughout the exhibition, damaged objects repaired with colorful threads emphasize and celebrate worn areas — not only to preserve and restore, but also to offer a renewed sense of value, appreciation, and usefulness. Using darning techniques in traditional and nontraditional ways, stitching serves as a visual representation of mending as an act of care. To fix something — to make it whole again — is an act of healing. 

Extending the life of any object is also a significant gesture towards a more sustainable existence. Displayed alongside the carefully mended pieces are all too familiar scenes of excess — piles of handmade quilts in need of repair, mass quantities of unwanted clothing bundled in bales like harvest crops. This visual interplay of abundance and scarcity calls into focus the paradox of fixing things in a culture of mass consumerism and disposability. 

From emotional repairs like the artist’s own jeans heavily patched with layers of her late father’s clothing, to a cracked plastic garden tote pulled from the garbage and stitched back together, “Mending in a State of Abundance” is about seeing the potential in worn-out everyday objects. Through repair, we can rethink consumption and imbue our own value on possessions and resources. As we navigate the vicissitudes of life, piecing together broken materials can also make a way forward feel tangible — one thread, one stitch, one step at a time.

Katrina Perdue is a textile artist and educator living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. Her love for hand stitching has grown over the past twenty years from first learning machine sewing, quickly followed by hand knitting, and most recently to a full time studio practice focusing on the art and impact of mending and repair. She was selected to be a textile studio assistant at Penland School of Craft for a summer 2019 mending workshop, a 2020 Arts Memphis ArtsAccelerator Grantee, and an adjunct instructor of Textiles at the University of Memphis. 

Katrina was born and raised in the Midwest, spent several years living in the Mid-Atlantic, and now calls Memphis — the heart of the Mid-South — home.

Instagram: @katrinaperdue

Website: www.katrinaperdue.com