artist statement
Elizabeth Winkelhoff is a self-taught craft artist and arts educator based in the DMV. She specializes in fiber arts and bookbinding, but as a sustainability artist, she is emboldened to use all mediums available to her. Elizabeth believes that art exists to interpret and translate, and that handiwork can expand our understanding of ourselves and our surroundings. Her methods stem from sustainability and reuse—she uses secondhand material and minimizes waste. At the intersection of craft art, visual art, and arts education, Elizabeth thrives.
Elizabeth explores her connection to the world and our connection to art through undervalued craft mediums that, after having been passed to her through generations, she’s modernized. In her Telescopic Eye series, she reinterprets what it means to use art to understand what we can’t see. Her curiosity with the unseen extends to her other work—she enlarges nature to understand, and to appreciate the art that already surrounds us.
Elizabeth brings visual art proclivities to her functional bookbinding, starting interpretive conversation with whoever picks up her book and uses it. She is drawn to bookbinding for this—the creation of each book is anticipatory, for the book is only complete as art when the person who is meant to use it, does.
Her practice is tied to a history of knowledge sharing, which preserves and interprets traditional craft forms, but also updates them. She teaches bookbinding across DC to encourage others to reframe their understanding of craft as sustainable and as a means of expression. With every group, she learns something new, too. She hosts craft-based community events, to foster community building around art and reuse. The embroidery work she does is tied to her bookbinding, is tied to her teaching, is tied to her community, because they feed each other and all grow from the same foundation.
contact
amethystalchemistart@gmail.com
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