CAITLIN MCCORMACK: Petrichor

September 10 - December 31, 2025

Additional support thanks to a grant from the Bridgette Mayer Gallery
Philadelphia-based fiber artist and educator Cait McCormack has contributed works to solo and group exhibitions at Elijah Wheat Showroom, Hashimoto Contemporary, The Mütter Museum, Museum Rijswijk, The Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, The Taubman Museum of Art, The Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Feinkünst Krüger, Field Projects, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, FutureFair, and with BravinLee Programs in NYC. Their sculptures have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, BOMB, Juxtapoz, Whitehot Magazine, Smithsonian, and Bust Magazine. In addition to holding teaching positions at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Hussian College of Art and Design, McCormack has participated in artist residencies at The Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts, The Peter Bullough Foundation,The Wassaic Project, Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, Kimmel Harding Nelson, and The C-Scape DuneShack Artist Residency Program in Provincetown, MA. McCormack was the recipient of a Joseph Robert Foundation grant in 2021 and received the Woodmere Art Museum's Maurice Freed Memorial Prize in 2023.
"My work externalizes experiences with mental illness, dysmorphia, and assault, producing a taxonomy of emotive vessels. Exploring queerness, isolation, and existential dread through an uncanny, sometimes humorous lens, I contemplate societal reluctance to legitimize gendered craft and regard crochet as a behavioral response to apocalyptic conditions. Inspired by folk-loric botanical motifs, institutional osteological displays, sci-fi/body horror cinema, and an abundance of time spent alone with an overactive imagination, each object is an unraveling relic of a thought, tethered to a surface and made viewable at a distance." - Cait McCormack
- Never Let The Party Die, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, and faux fur on mixed-media base, 17 x 16 x 16"
"My hand-crocheted cotton thread is dredged in glues and foraged pigments and is then fashioned into sculptural forms. The transformative act of generating and stiffening each unit into a static composition recontextualizes moments of despair and rage as ornate, provocative, or comical specimens."
Origin Story, 2021, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, and fringe appliqué on velvet-covered found object assemblage, 12 x 14 x 10.5"
The Holy Spirit of Halloween™, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, flashe, faux fur, custom acrylic coffin, 3.5 x 17 x 28"
- Grab ’N Go, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, wire, 12 x 7 x 8"
- Hand On The Button That Started The Machine, 2022, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue,
  foraged pigment, synthetic fringe appliqué on velvet-covered found object assemblage, 27.25 x 9 x 12"
Shadow Farmer, 2022, Hand-crocheted cotton, hemp, linen, and glue appliqué on velvet-covered found object assemblage with synthetic fringe, 68 x 18 x 9.5"

PETRICHOR

By Gerard Silva
Director of Exhibitions & Community Outreach, Fleisher Art Memorial

When it rains, especially after a dry spell, a portmanteau manifests as a smell with a distinctive earthy, fresh scent. The portmanteau in question is petrichor, a word that was coined from “petros," (stone) and “ichor” (in Greek mythology, ichor is the fluid running through the veins of Gods, a concoction of delicious liquids that will kill us mortals). The title of this exhibition is key to understanding the work of artist Caitlin McCormack.
Your Time For Being Loved Will End, 2025, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, steel pins, and velvet on MDF, 31 x 31 x 4.5"

They are a master at interweaving, whether literally or metaphorically. On the one hand, they utilize crochet, an ancient needlework craft associated with domesticity that utilizes yarn, a hook, and many interlocking loops. You begin to understand that the artist has carefully designed a methodical plan embedded in the crochet DNA leading to the creation of art with profound meaning and countless implications.
On the other hand, it is not only their medium that is carefully considered. Their subject matter and titles are all part of this larger plan to enter your consciousness and remain there. Cunning perhaps? Exhibit 1: “Milkvetch (How Much More Can They Hold?), 2025”. First, I was captivated by this complex work and its carefully constructed structure: a crocheted sculpture of a flower with lungs. These two elements, the flower and the lungs, clearly evoke a very provocative image in the viewer’s head and you could just stop there. The title invited me to delve deeper into this and soon I was caught in a vast web of information. I wondered about the artist’s intentions, yet I had already made my own conclusions regarding milkvetch, taking into account humans, fire and the air that we breathe, all of this provided by a quick google search.

Milkvetch (How Much More Can They Hold?), 2025, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, flashe, wire, plaster, glass display cloche, 14 x 7 x 6"
Go Home, Magna Mater, You’re Drunk, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, steel pins, and velvet on wood, 37 x 4.5"

McCormack is clever at concealing meaning and I suspect they have a smirk on their face when concocting these clever ideas! Whether conscious or unconscious, McCormack’s plan of action is rooted in darkness and in light, in the esoteric and in the mundane, in horror and in comedy.

There’s also a thread, no pun intended, in all of McCormack’s work which feels embedded as if in a spider’s web, of layers of cohesive themes of entanglement. Through the art of crocheting they manipulate, through their choice of titles they capture and with the work as a whole they seduce you with contrasting emotions. Spiders are associated with creation, illusion, interconnectedness and persistence and the artist checks all these boxes.
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McCormack's preliminary sketches
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New Fate of the Husk, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, enamel paint, faux fur, wire, 26 x 23 x 24"
- Babylon Rec Room, 2023, Vintage wallpaper on salvaged drywall with hand-crocheted cotton string and glue embellishment, 13 x 12 x 3.5"
- Babylon Breakfast Nook, 2023, Vintage wallpaper on salvaged drywall with hand-crocheted cotton string and glue embellishment, 18 x 12 x 3.5"
"Heavily obscured by an overgrowth of crocheted string, fibrous vines, and lace-like flowers, the integrity of these objects is reinforced by complex networks, just as we are all strengthened by the calcified scars of a lifetime of experiences. These particular sculptures express my internal trepidations as a queer person existing in a volatile world and contribute to an ongoing conversation surrounding hierarchy, craft, trauma, and ecology."
- Hyaluronica II, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, used disposable facial mask, hand-sewn velvet cushion, and fringe, 8.5 x 9 x 10"
"A lot of my string is sourced from estate sales, flea markets, discarded sidewalk piles, plus inheritances from deceased family members. My grandmother and her sisters used a lot of the thread that is present in my work to create doilies and delicate accessories during the Great Depression. Sometimes I dye the crocheted material with pigments foraged during hikes or I’ll coat the lace with multiple layers of enamel paint, which creates a sinewy, ropey effect."
- Swim Team, 2022, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, steel pins, and velvet on wood, 37 x 4.5"
- Your Time For Being Loved Will End, 2025, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, steel pins, and velvet on MDF, 31 x 31 x 4.5"
"Crocheting is very engaging and bodily as a practice and, combined with overcoming grief, it felt like a very natural activity to gravitate towards. It provided me with a way to transmute my various traumas into something that felt useful. The work I make now has evolved from being a safety zone, which I can retreat to, towards more of a terrifying process wherein I challenge myself to see how blatantly I can put my feelings on display."
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Edible Derangement I, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, velvet, 7.5 x 6 x 5"
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Still Ripe, 2023, Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, and enamel paint sculpture on velvet-covered mixed media assemblage, 8.5 x 8.25 x 8.25"

IN-PERSON OPPORTUNITIES - MEET CAITLIN AND EXPLORE THEIR WORK:

FREE OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND

Saturday October 11th & Sunday October 12th, 12:00 to 6:00pm

As part of Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST), visit the Dina Wind Art Foundation and John Wind Studios. This event is free and open to the public ~

LEARN MORE

GHOULISH FALL FUNDRAISER - AN EVENING WITH CAITLIN MCCORMACK

Wednesday October 29, 2025, 6:30pm

Enjoy an exciting evening of art, chef-curated treats, bartender tricks and Halloween revelry (costumes encouraged!) Come explore McCormack’s garden of crocheted oddities and enjoy sumptuous vegan offerings from Rachel Klein of Miss Rachel’s Pantry all while supporting the Dina Wind Art Foundation’s mission and our first benefit. Advance registration through the ticket link below is required ~

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
A limited edition zine accompanying this exhibition is now available for purchase in our online store, along with select works from the exhibition ~

SHOP NOW

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