Kiara Reagan

Interdisciplinary Artist in Boston, MA

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I have been finishing up t-shirts and this pink quilt top for a group show in the fall about myths. The themes of my work for this show are the myths of the Cowboy and the Car, and I am thinking about the way that they relate to the bicycle in American culture. On Thursday, Louisa Gag, a transportation planner for the city, was hit by a truck and killed while riding her bike. It's jarring and sobering when someone dies on their bike in the city, even moreso when it's someone that dedicated her career to making the streets safer and biking more accessible.

Lots of the work I have been making is playful and silly, and about the joy and freedom of riding a bike. It is meant to contrast the harsh, almost brutal, images of cars and cowboys. Yet while I am out having the time of my life with my bike pony, Starlight Special, there is very real danger. It's very hard to square the joy and individual freedom and strong community and personal power and heart-pounding fear and seething anger and regret that comes with riding a bike here.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I've finished two more horses, Moonlight Makeout and Rainbow Roadrage. They are so joyful and endearing. I also realized again this week I have no idea what real horses look like.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I started a quilt that I have had in my sketchbook for a long time. It is a whole cloth quilt (meaning it's one piece of fabric, not many pieces sewn together) with lettering on top. Most of my quilts are appliqué on one big piece of fabric because it makes the most sense to me. It's more like drawing and painting when I plan quilts that way.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I am working on two more bike horses. Everything takes longer than I expect it to, but once you put the eyes on the horses they come to life and have so much personality.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I am almost finished making the quilt top with the horse riding a bike animation blocks - I just have some appliqué to add before I make my quilt sandwich.

[kiarareagan]

This week the studio has taken a backseat while I move apartments. I think these tiny beds will have plastic bugs in sleeping in them.

[kiarareagan]

Some sounds from the studio this week.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I made a t-shirt for my friend, did lots of painting in the dollhouse, and started a spider prototype for a piece I am making in collaboration with my mom. I treated myself to a trip to Goodwill and got some great fabrics, including a couple blankets for more hobby horses.

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I am doing lots of embroidery and thinking about stitching like drawing. I like to draw with pen and it feels very similar, just slower, and I'm thinking about ways I can be expressive with my stitches. I made a couch for my dollhouse, and with the addition of some furniture from my mom's childhood dollhouse, it's really starting to come together

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio:

I am trying to finish my last miniatures for the Brighton Miniatures Collaborative with the Brookline Village Arts Festival, and to start piecing my horse riding a bike quilt.

[kiarareagan]

This is my most recent batch of postcards sent out to my snail mail list. They are collages made with film photographs taken by my partner, as well as a few of my own photographs.

[kiarareagan]

In December I finished the Community Graveyard Quilt started at my show "Dead Body: A Quilt Show" this summer at Project Hustle. I'm so pleased with all the graves added by people visiting the show - thank you all for engaging with this work and making such wonderful and vulnerable gravestones. We've made such a lovely quilt together.

To finish this quilt, I machine quilted the horizontal lines and hand quilted the meandering cemetery path. The green backing is fabric from my friend's grandma (it's the same carded cotton I used for the front, and the larger pieces show the way it had aged) and the binding fabric is from a thrifted dress.

[kiarareagan]

Today in the studio

[kiarareagan]

This week in the studio I've decorated my floss pick trees. I don't particularly like Christmas but I love decorated trees.

[kiarareagan]

Some great install photos from Failed Seriousness at Gallery 263, juried by Libby Paloma.

[kiarareagan]

I'm happy to have my work Sunbonnet Sue Gets High to Cope in "Failed Seriousness" at Gallery 263, juried by Libby Paloma!

[kiarareagan]

I'm grateful to be showing work at Project Hustle, a project space in Boston's South End that is dedicating to supporting emerging artists. Dead Body: A Quilt Show is my first time showing solo work outside of SMFA, and it could not have happened without the help of Jacob Namgung and Brooke Stuart especially, who organizes the space and has been my teacher and mentor for many years.