Craft alongside this month’s featured artist, Katharine Joy Houpt, over coffee in community!

Katharine is a Chicago mixed media artist working in fiber arts, collage, and drawing to create uncanny and absurd imagery. She engages in slow, process-oriented techniques that allow for improvisation and emergence of the unexpected, aiming for a balance between delight and darkness. She has a BA from the Evergreen State College and an MA in Art Therapy from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Katharine taught as part-time art therapy faculty at SAIC for ten years. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including a solo exhibition in 2026.

Artist Statement: I make absurdist, existential creatures, environments, and uncanny imagery using improvised and free-motion quilting, appliqué, embroidery, collage, and mixed media. I explore the embodiment of subjectivity and place-- an inner world within outer world constraints. My art is an exercise of being in the moment. I become aware of what I choose to see and what I have left out, either intentionally or unconsciously. My work walks the line between comfort and discomfort, play and control. I aim for truth inherent in the balance.

So, grab your crafting materials and explore the artist's process, materials, inspiration, and other ideas related to her work.