Katie McColgan: Rug Tufting
Throughout the residency, McColgan will create a new body of work while leading workshops, open studio sessions, and collaborative projects that invite students and community members to engage with tufting. Her practice explores themes of repetition, material transformation, and sustainability, incorporating recycled tufting materials into new works.
The residency will culminate in an exhibition of completed rugs that highlight both the finished pieces and the collaborative process behind their creation, celebrating art as a shared experience and fostering new opportunities for creative connection within the community.
- Mon, July 27 | 3:45–4:45pm
- Thur, July 30 | 1–2pm
- Mon, Aug 3 | 3:45–4:45pm
- Thur, Aug 6 | 1–2pm
Thursday, Aug 13 | 6–9pm
Ages 16+ | Free! Join artist-in-residence Katie McColgan for a free collaborative, community rug tufting workshop where participants will contribute to a shared textile artwork. Learn the basics of tufting, explore this unique fiber art technique, and help create a one-of-a-kind community-made rug. No experience needed!
Registration coming soon!
The residency will conclude with an exhibition of completed works on view in the Annex Gallery.
Fri, Sept 4 | 6–8pm
Join us for the opening reception celebrating the work of 2026 Artist-in-Residence Katie McColgan. Explore the exhibition, meet the artist, and celebrate the culmination of a residency centered on creativity, collaboration, and community.
Shuffle — 202260 × 16 × 10”, Tufted acrylic rug, gouache on masonite, stained porcelain, paint rag.
Little Bit of Everything — 202224 × 53 × 4.5”, Tufted mixed fiber rug, stained porcelain, gouache on masonite
Her work explores the relationships we form with the objects, spaces, and fragments that stay with us. Small, familiar forms become stand-ins for emotional experiences, allowing her to navigate memory and feeling through tactile processes. By making, she gives physical form to things that are difficult to hold onto, while acknowledging that objects can only briefly evoke memories before they soften into fleeting emotions.
McColgan's sculptures play with desire and hesitation, often appearing inviting—even edible. Sharp, fragile, or precarious elements interrupt that impulse, creating a tension between attraction and repulsion, sweetness and risk. These contradictions mirror the complexities of memory, longing, vulnerability, and the desire to hold onto things that are already changing. Positioned between abstraction and familiarity, her work invites viewers to form their own connections and interpretations.
Interested in moments on the edge of transformation, McColgan explores the space just before something perfect dissolves, crumbles, or slips away. Color plays a central role in this tension. Brightly saturated hues exist alongside washed-out tones reminiscent of sun-bleached plastic toys or faded keepsakes. Through layering, fastening, and releasing, McColgan creates works that simultaneously preserve and let go, leaving space for viewers to return again and again to a familiar state of tension, possibility, and reflection.
Katie’s Portfolio Site