Kathy Bussert-Webb 3DbyKathy.com
FOCUS
Assemblage art with found objects & natural pigments
ARTIST STATEMENT
Dr. Kathy explores healing her inner child and walking in harmony with nature. While honoring the child within her & the environment, she makes natural pigments, hand-embroiders, & creates sculptures, assemblages, & tapestries from fabric, found objects, wood, metal, & handmade paper. She also harvests algae & other plants for papermaking. Her sustainability interests emanate from positive childhood experiences in nature. Kathy felt peace by foraging for berries & mushrooms, making forts in the woods with her sister, & helping with her family’s garden & poultry.
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Kathy’s gender & consumption art & her past traumas inform her current practice. Her food installations & sculptures focused on her childhood sexual abuse & her parents’ food-related health issues. Also, her refugee mother experienced food insecurity, which she projected by having Kathy & her siblings eat (especially meat) until stuffed. Growing up with a polyglot Hungarian mother & teaching literacy methods in the Rio Grande Valley, TX, also inform Kathy’s hybrid practices, such as creating assemblage, including poetry & dialogue, and translanguaging (combining languages, such as Hungarian and English). Kathy also upcycles materials because she hoards & improvises, like her deceased parents. For instance, for the woman’s broach for In One Ear Kathy incorporated a bathtub drain. Like a magpie, this interdisciplinary artist incorporates discarded objects to turn junk into art, a metaphor for overcoming trauma.
BIOGRAPHY & CV
Dr. Kathy, a full-time multimedia artist at Equinox Studios, Seattle, received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in studio art from UT-Rio Grande Valley in May 2022. Kathy was a fellow at the Chautauqua School of Visual Arts (Chautauqua, NY), Azule (Hot Springs, NC), Art Farm (Marquette, NE), Elsewhere Studios (Paonia, CO), Joya Art+Ecology (Andalucía, Spain), Homestead National Historical Park (Beatrice, NE), & Vermont Studio Center ((Johnson, VE). She'll complete a 2024 residency & volunteer experience at Mauser Eco House (Costa Rica). Kathy has exhibited in several juried & non-juried shows & has initiated socially engaged art experiences. She had pop-up installations at the Children's Museum (Brownsville, TX, 2021) & the International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, TX, 2022). Her 2022 solo shows include an MFA exhibition (Edinburg, TX), the Brownsville Art Hub, & the Brownsville Performing Arts Academy. She's won awards at juried local & national shows.
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Kathy published a photo of her ceramic piece & accompanying poem & an article about her practice in national, peer-reviewed journals. She published two art reviews & a Jana Harper interview in Glasstire, a Texas art magazine. Dr. Kathy holds a Ph.D. in Language Education from Indiana University, Bloomington. She's Professor Emerita in UTRGV’s Bilingual & Literacy Studies Department, a Slemp Endowed Chair of Community Engagement, & a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Honduras). She walked 500+ miles on two Caminos (Portuguese & El Norte) & received Compostela certificates in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
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Abbreviated CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wgMFifbzFky8u4Rah-xcWyLnSO9-ifYk/view?usp=sharing
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Long CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p98VRCoT2sG21woeePnAsLLWrfW2v4Xg/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114929099631504223859&rtpof=true&sd=true
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