Hi, I'm Katika, a fiber artist documenting coronavirus quarantine with crochet portraits.
I have been in quarantine for about a month, just like millions of people all over the world. In the very first days of sitting at home and wondering what to expect I realized that I needed to reflect my feelings about the situation and, hopefully, to bring some positivity to people I could reach. I came up with an idea of a project which I now call "The other side of the quarantine". It is a series of portraits of my audience members and their loved ones, which I crochet, photograph, and send to the customers in high resolution so they can give them as gifts to people dear to them and possibly print in the future. I have been working in a confined space on the balcony of the apartment I am currently in, not even in my own studio. Together with me, I brought high-quality yarn I had dyed (some of it I had even spun) in the attempts to enhance my understanding of the medium of yarn and to create an ideal palette for me to work with. "The other side of the quarantine" turned out to be a very personal project into which I put a lot of effort and love, and I got to know new people and their stories about themselves and their relatives. I feel like I got closer to them, and in this lonely time, it gives me a lot of warmth and hope.
The project now contains about 20 portraits, and I have no intention of stopping!
More info: katika-art.com
