Kathryn Kosto

While working on a much neglected two-hundred-year-old farmhouse, I found myself haunted by an item the previous owners had left behind: a large, mahogany-framed mirror, its silver backing flaking and tarnished, its massive face murky and scratched.

As I worked on the house, peeling back layers of wallpaper and uncovering walls constructed within walls, the mirror seemed my only companion.  At times it reflected tattered shreds of former splendor, while at other times it showed only my own dust-streaked face.  Where the mirror’s silvering had eroded completely, the surface was merely - and mutely - transparent. 

These collages reflect this multi-purposed looking glass: they both witness and obscure.  I am interested in exploring women’s historical roles in small, tightly packed images, which recall black-framed daguerreotypes.  In the pieces, I synthesize aesthetic styles that women developed almost exclusively, such as pressed flower herbariums, millinery, and hand-stitched samplers.  I hope that you will find that looking at the past provides a new way of seeing our own time.

Kathryn also serves as the Guild's webmaster.