Interview by Rachel Gottesman

Congrats, Katherine. This is your first print, isn't it?

Indeed it is my first print! I was so excited when I received the e-mail and needed to reload, read, and repeat several times before it registered.

I really do admire Threadless’s business model, particularly how it supports, propagates, and informs designers and consumers alike.



From what inner depths does your blend of evil and cute come from?

Well I did attend Catholic school during the majority of my young adult life, but all joking aside, my fascination for the macabre and cloyingly sweet began at a very young age. I thought about death, dying, and the meaning of life when I was very young and during my teenage years I wrote my share of angst-ridden poetry about darkness, death, and decay.



Simultaneously I was also cultivating a love for Japanese pop culture and wholly embraced the characters of the San-X generation. (You could make any mundane inanimate object into a cute mascot just by adding two black beady eyes and a wee mouth.) It only made sense to put these two obsessions together.

And really it is that innate desire to see the destruction of something so innocent, so cute that hypnotizes the collective subconscious onto the brink of insanity . . .



Because I'm all about being random, tell me about your fondest childhood memory.

My fondest memory . . . well it’s not my fondest, but it sure sticks out in my mind.

Age: 8

One day my older brother had spilled a gallon of milk all over the floor. I thought what a great idea it would be if I brought in the cat to drink it all up. So I did, and it was happily lapping away, but after several minutes, it was making no progress.

I then picked it up quite suddenly, which caused it to make “hurking” noises and as I was running to the door to throw it out, it threw up all over the place. I had to clean up double the mess. I think I learned something that day, though if it were to happen again today, I’d probably be tempted to do the same thing.

Cats. Bless them. They always throw up where it's hardest to clean.

Do you make art for a living? Go ahead and [insert website plug here].

Not at the moment. Currently I am an apprentice on a 1200-acre organic beef farm though I am opting out to work on a much smaller, more community-based organic farm. I do freelance once in a while, but for the most part it has been treated more as a hobby up until now.

Besides t shirts, what is your favorite medium of expression? (Yes I said 'medium of expression'. Do I sound like a fine arts professor or what?)

Hehe, I never met a fine arts professor that actually cared about what medium I used (at least in the beginning).



My favorite medium . . . I’d say hands down is pencil, and though I have somewhat of a fetish for sharp, flawless points, I prefer messy graphite sticks to mechanical pencils any day.

Do you have any awesome plans for the future?

Someday I would love to be able to start up my own small organic farm, maybe sweet potatoes?

Aside from that, create art and lots of it,

Interview by Rachel Gottesman


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