Catherine Reinhart
Born: Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Lives: Ames, Iowa, USA
Relic
Disassembled baby carrier, silk, sterling silver buckles, human milk tooth
129.5cm x 99.1cm
Catherine Reinhart creates fibre work and conducts social practice with abandoned textiles around themes of domestic labor, connection, and care. The work questions society’s low view of the domestic labour of caregiving and positions an icon of childrearing as a precious object.
Relic is made from a faded and disassembled baby carrier and mended in silk with jewelled buckles in cast silverwork. The centre buckle contains a pink felted reliquary containing one of the artist’s own child’s milk teeth. Reinhart's work attends to and honors the damage and wear of the object/ baby carrier and her own maternal experiences.