We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kat Geng-Caraballo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kat below.

Kat, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

A puppet taught me. Guided by its tattered seams and felted curls, I began to sew figures with features resembling my own. I grew up alongside the fabric cast of my grandmother’s traveling puppet theatre, Puppenbühne Helen Geng, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I began inspecting their woolen hairlines and dimpled cheeks for clues to their construction.

Before quarantine, hand-me-downs, house paint and weathered wood were my materials of choice but my competence grew in shaping cloth in the same fashion as I learned to build my assemblages, with practice. I learn by doing. Making and failing at it – which is to say not being satisfied with the results – and making more anyways.

The biggest obstacle to learning is giving up. I don’t do that. It requires persistence, desire, and a touch of humble pie.

Observation is also important. I watched my father in the studio and witnessed how he gathered his materials, how he broke rules – no colors don’t go he insists – how he did not consider any material unworthy of his attention, and how he follows the material’s lead.

Outdated how-to books on New York City sidewalks presented me with instructions to stray from.

My mom reminds me to work with what I already have. I watch her as she prepares fabric for dying with plant pigments that give the deep purple color to the Au Nostural Nose Job.

Learning need not be quick to be valuable. There is immense opportunity in not knowing something, however frightening it may be. Often with expertise comes polish and sometimes knowing can leave us complacent, averse to the risks that keep the work fresh and imperfect. With each Nose Job, I meet a new nose with its own slope and markings and concerns. The challenge keeps me striving.

Mistakes reveal the human behind the work. They offer imperfection which brings one in closer. So, while I always feel excited to learn and accomplished once I have, I try to remember that the process is in fact part of the gift.

Kat, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I envision sculpture as a catalyst for things not easy to come by: shifts in perspective, empathy, vulnerability and connection. With that in mind, I invite engagement with my work in unexpected ways. Via pulleys and levers participants may communicate through my furrow-browed puppets or traverse an assemblage of inner tubes and gelatin molds as they collectively create a game with no fixed rules or predetermined end.

In my newest project, By Word of Nose, I bring our most prominent feature front and center as a symbol of belonging, connection, heritage and self-acceptance. I administer Nose Jobs, one-on-one hour long explorations that lead to a hand-stitched nose sculpture created as an ode to the collector’s nose. These playful exchanges – rooted in the question, What story does your nose tell? – inform each bespoke mini-heirloom piece, from the fabric selection to the form.

My own nose did not escape unwelcome attention in my youth and despite this rather brief moment in time, it left an impression. Years later, as I began sewing figures in the same tradition of my family’s fabric puppets, this sensitive feature posed a new challenge. It was not easy to make. In fact, of all the parts of the face, the nose demanded the most attention and dexterity to create. Shaping a slow and steady stream of bulbous forms, I wondered, Would I represent the bump that caused me grief? As I scoured through photos of my beloved noses – the ones who shared the bump and those who shared in the smells of home – a feeling emerged; belonging. Each soft cotton form, round embroidered nostril, with shades of brown and olive skin and interrupted slopes offered me a tenderness I had not offered mine before. Soon all I saw were links: to my ancestors, my Colombian heritage, my intuition, my memories and the emotions they awoke, a portal to my life and all the experiences and people that formed me.

When I sit with a collector, and ultimately their nose, I do so with great care and humility. My Nose Jobs serve as reminders. To breathe deeper, slower, to savor the smell of the ocean breeze, to honor the many ways it connects us to ourselves and others. With the launch of my new website, I offer six types of custom Nose Jobs: The Scentimental, The Nosetalgic, The Duet, The Artist’s Signature, The Regal and The Au Nostural. Each treatment celebrates a collector’s nose in its own unique way.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

It is to discover without expectation of what I might find, to let go when it’s the last thing I want to do.

Artmaking is where my intuition speaks loudest. It is a cathartic experience for me, full of laughter, some euphoria, occasional tears and moments of seemingly impenetrable stuckness. It has offered insights into myself and my connection with others that I haven’t found elsewhere, often during times of need.

I make art because it feels like home. If I can inspire others with my discoveries, offer viewers avenues to reclaim their own narratives or just spread some chuckles then it’s a good day.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The best practical tools and perspective shift on working as an artist that I have yet encountered came in the form of Andrew Simonet’s book, Making Your Life as an Artist. Andrew is a very creative, kind, and gentle artist, writer, choreographer and community builder offering a unique and valuable point of view.

There is a complimentary workbook that can be best explored by convening fellow artists to share knowledge and wins. It is available as a free download at artistu.org, the grassroots, artist-run platform for changing the working conditions of artists that Andrew founded.

Aside from that, I really can’t think of one resource in particular. I think community, whether that is among other artists, other freelancers or another community you are a part of, is so beneficial. It can be isolating chugging away in your studio to disappear into the abyss for a time as artist’s often do and it’s nice to know that someone will be there when you come up for air. It’s also essential for commiseration (if it’s an artist community) and encouragement, not to mention sharing resources.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bywordofnose.com and www.katgeng.com
• Instagram: @bywordofnose @katgeng_caraballo
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Wz0IPhuq4

Image Credits

2 Images of me in studio by Mohammad Reza Alimorad
Image of nose in box by Ksena Samborska
Image of Puppet Booths at Bronx Museum by Argenis Apolinario