Conventional domestic and low-tech items, clothespins in particular, play a key role in my artwork. Generally clothespins are associated with the woman's task of doing the laundry and hanging the clothes out to dry. In my projects, clothespins transcend that original function by relating them to the human body. By allowing them to serve more exotic, whimsical and possibly painful purposes our contemporary existence is scrutinized. Life overwhelmed with technology has lost its appreciation for the small and unassuming.

In 2003, I started the Clothespin Tarot project by introducing the “Clothespin Freaks” in watercolor and pencil drawings inspired by the 78 cards of the traditional Tarot. Moving from clothespins as body attachments to anthropomorphized Clothespin Freaks was a natural step. The way in which the clothespins merged with the Tarot can only be explained as a freak accident or an evolutionary mishap.

These anthropomorphic, mythological figures are made of clear plastic clothespins, doll's body parts and sewn pieces. Different in many ways from other Tarot imagery, these works on paper stand out especially in that the subversive principal characters rebel against the establishment of the "suits". Instead of swords, wands, coins and cups, the Clothespin Freaks make use of hatpins, darners, buttons and thimbles, alternative implements characterized by their intrinsic alignment with the feminine.

These drawings propose to enlighten and entertain the viewer by emphasizing the importance of one's imagination in a world where thinking big while considering the fine detail has become a freakish exception.

Catya Plate
Brooklyn, 2007