Katie VanVliet is a sculptor and printmaker from Philadelphia, PA. She founded BYO Print, a collective studio for printmaking in 2009 to provide an affordable, accessible printshop, with a mission to keep artists printing on their own time within a reasonable budget.

In her own studio, she is interested in narrative of all varieties. She draws on found and collected objects that have a story to tell. Aside from unique curiosities, she collects leftovers of routines and rituals, and incorporates them into ongoing bodies of work, most notably, “the pill project.” AKA “The Only Reason I’m Still on the Pill is for the Art Project” is an ongoing work started in 2006, collecting inactive and expired pills from women in her community and assembling them into artworks. Most recently, a series of functional color-blindness fields were assembled with the natural colors of the contributed pills.

If you are interested in becoming a contributor to “the pill project,” please contact the artist. Single and recurring contributions are equally welcome.

Tools, Talismans, & Totems

Tools, objects, and raw materials picked from the workshops of my father, my paternal grandmother and grandfather ( who all passed away over the course of 13 months in 2012-2013 ) are combined with other reclaimed materials . I am exploring my relationship with each family member as I combine their collected things with my own to make new tools, totems, or talismans.

Generally, I am attracted to found and collected objects because they have a history – a story to tell. Aside from unique curiosities, I collect leftovers of routines and rituals, and incorporate them into ongoing bodies of work. By deconstructing components of existing objects, I’m searching for the ways these components interact with other parts to form a new function – a new narrative.