THIS SEPTEMBER, we’ll have the immense pleasure of hosting our friend and client Katrina Rodabaugh as she teaches her wildly popular, introductory Visible Mending Workshop in our beautiful Catskill space. Katrina is an accomplished visible mender, natural dyer and teacher, and the author of the books Make Thrift Mend (2021) and Mending Matters (2018). Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Selvedge Magazine and many more. And as you’ll see, she is so thoughtful about sustainable fashion, teaching and treading lightly on the earth.
We hope you’re as inspired by this interview as we were — and please join us for the workshop this Fall! There are still a few spots available—
In 2013, you started a year-long personal project called “Make Thrift Mend,” following the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh, which was eye-opening for so many people. As the project’s title suggests, you committed to swearing off acquiring new clothing — and instead, mending what you owned, and either making or thrifting anything you did add to your closet. Were you sharing this project on social media or a blog at that time, or was it strictly a thing you were doing for yourself?
When I started Make Thrift Mend back in 2013 I was also publishing weekly essays on my studio’s blog. I was under contract for my first book, The Paper Playhouse, and working between paper, fabric and fine arts. Make Thrift Mend was intended to be a one-year personal art project, or social practice project, without any fixed outcomes. I decided to share the process on my blog to help with accountability. I had no idea my studio work would turn 100% towards sustainable fashion, mending and textiles. These were all interests of mine but, at the time, living in Oakland CA and working in nonprofit galleries, I thought I’d keep working in collaborative, community-based arts projects. Not that I’d start full-time mending.
Did you know about visible mending when you started your project in 2013, or were you originally thinking and doing more traditional mending. When did sashiko and patchwork and other visible-mending techniques find their way into your practice?
I started mending in 2013 because I needed to extend the life of my jeans that still fit me. I was mothering a toddler and planning to have a second baby, and my body was in constant flux. I didn’t want to buy new clothes when my sizes were shifting. Jeans that fit were priceless. And once I started Make Thrift Mend, it made more sense to repair what I owned, and already fit, than to find “new” jeans secondhand. I learned of sashiko mending, or more so the Japanese tradition of boro, and was inspired by the concept of mending being visible. I loved that it added value, and sentiment, through layers, time and handwork. As I started researching mending, I realized there were repair traditions all over the world — Japanese sashiko, Indian kantha, American quilting and European darning that differed from country-to-country. The visible repairs are still so moving to me — the hand of the stitcher is truly palpable and there’s such power in the insistence on handwork being seen.
Traditional mending was meant to be as undetectable as possible — let’s call it Invisible Mending. Nobody was supposed to know you were wearing a garment that wasn’t as good as new. As your project continued beyond that first year and took on new forms, you became a name in the “visible mending” world, which has been big online in the ensuing years. (And of course, it has ancient precedents in Japan’s boro tradition, etc, as you’ve noted.) By nature of being visible — outspoken! — and celebrated, mending has become its own art form, in a way. It seems not coincidental that having one’s clothes shout the fact that they’re not new has gone hand in hand with the rise of the slow fashion movement. Thoughts on that?
I love the visible mending movement so much. It’s subversive, expressive, creative, personal and also more sustainable. But I love how it’s evolved, in my work and in the world, to include any form of redesign or upcycling. I grow dye plants for shifting color in secondhand textiles and that feels like mending. I reuse unwanted jeans for patches for my craft kits and that feels like mending. Even renovating our old farmhouse has felt like mending. It’s so expansive and inspiring — that mending can be anything. I think designers are tasked with making beautiful, useful objects. But we all know that true invention comes with restriction — even if that’s just restriction of design elements like color, shape or texture. But the design possibilities are truly limitless when we add “sustainability” to that design mandate. Imagine the opportunities for design when we have to consider beauty, usefulness and origins of our materials. The most exciting design I see today is from folks who are using castoff materials or regional, regenerative fibers — it’s thrilling.
We agree wholeheartedly! In fact, reworked and upcycled pieces are 1 of the 3 components of the Made X Hudson product mix.
You worked in the arts before you started down this path. Do you see the wardrobe you’ve created as an extension of your prior art practice?
Yes. I see the entire Make Thrift Mend project — all the classes, articles, books and collaborations — as part of my continued art practice. I’ve been making a living in the arts for 25+ years and it’s foundational to how I work, think and run my business. But I also see my early training, my undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies, as the foundation for all my work now too. I couldn’t have predicted how my college degree, work in nonprofit arts organizations, and even my graduate work in creative writing would all collide — they felt disparate, at times — but I think artists keep exploring the same themes and, sometimes, if we just stay with those themes for long enough, they fuse into something new.
“There’s such power in the insistence
on handwork being seen”
You’ve said you never imagined when you started your Make Thrift Mend project that it would become your life, but here you are all these years later with multiple books under your belt and teaching others what you know about mending and darning, as well as natural dyeing. What made you want to write and teach?
It’s true, I never plotted out this pathway, but it’s been a tremendous journey. Unknowable, challenging and unpredictable but also tremendous. I started writing regularly as a teenager. I had a writing minor in undergrad and went back to grad school for an MFA in creative writing with a focus in poetry. I always wanted to write books. I write every day. But writing articles and tutorials became a way to sustain the creative work. It paid me, unlike my early blog or manuscript of poems. Writing nonfiction craft books has been a dream. It’s a great mashup of creativity, formal structure and art direction. I love it! I started teaching because folks asked me to teach them to mend and I was transitioning from having a full-time job in the arts to being a work-from-home mom. I quickly realized that teaching was a form of collaboration. It feels like an art experiment, every time. So much of my work is solitary as a writer and fiber artist but teaching builds community. I love it.
What is your favorite thing about this unplanned journey you’re on?
Probably that it has allowed me to write books, teach classes and connect so intimately with handwork. But also, that it’s helped me to go deeper with sustainable living and examine how I can better align my values with my habits — not out of a desire for perfection but out of a desire for connection. And that it moved me here to the glorious Hudson Valley!
And when you teach, what is the thing you most want people to leave with or get out of it?
When I teach I want people to feel empowered. I want them to realize that they can make things with their hands. And that they can contribute to sustainability — one textile at a time. I have taught thousands of students and, probably, close to a hundred workshops. Because of these experiences, I can distill all that I’ve learned and share it with students — they can learn from all my mistakes much quicker than I did. If you get clear on what you love to wear, use quality materials for construction, and consider some basic design elements in handwork, you have a recipe for gorgeous creations. Watching people realize their ability to make beautiful things, practice resourcefulness and focus on handcraft within a classroom community — it’s a very powerful thing. It’s not my job to have students make replicates of my work. It’s my job to help them make their own creative choices and gain technical skill for longer-lasting repairs. That’s a pretty dreamy job, if you ask me.
Thank you so much, Katrina!
We’re looking forward to the workshop, and hope you’ll join us. If you’re coming from out of town and need any recommendations, feel free to reach out!
For more from Katrina, follow @katrinarodabaugh. And for more great maker interviews, click here.
[ All photos courtesy of Katrina Rodabaugh ]
