Kathy Bussert-Webb 3DbyKathy.com
FOCUS
Interdisciplinary art using natural products about nature
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.
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.
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.
Abbreviated CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wgMFifbzFky8u4Rah-xcWyLnSO9-ifYk/view?usp=sharing
Long CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p98VRCoT2sG21woeePnAsLLWrfW2v4Xg/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114929099631504223859&rtpof=true&sd=true
