Jamie Lea Bertsch is an artist & educator, currently teaching in the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukeee Fibers Department. She received her MFA in Fibers from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, along with a BFA in graphic design & printmaking from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. Her time at UW- Stevens Point included a full research grant completely dedicated to natural dye sourcing + processing. During her studies, she has traveled abroad, teaching art in Mae Sai, Thailand. She also keeps a hand in letterpress design, creating work exclusively for Bella Figura in Syracuse, New York. Her work has been featured in Domino Magazine and Milwaukee Magazine. She has also shown her work in several solo and group exhibitions including the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York, the Lillstreet Gallery in Chicago, and the Parkside National Small Print Exhibition. Along with showing, Bertsch recently curated a fibers show featuring UWM faculty, students and alumni at Gallery 224 in Port Washington, Wi. In 2008, Jamie was recognized as the Design*Sponge Scholarship recipient by Grace Bonney. In her free time, she enjoys large-scale knotting, growing + arranging flowers, and weaving.
cast on / bound off is an ongoing piece made by unraveling cherished fabrics, personal belongings, and previous artworks. The resulting strands are then spun and obsessively knit into a patched and continuously growing installation. cast on / bound off is a record of multiple transformations, personal memory, and honest effort—becoming a memoir of the items that comprise it. The workhonors the humble stitch with a fanfare; fantastically recording the passage of time and multiple eras held within the materials. Detailed and laborious stitches represent the variations of process, mending a history of personal thoughts, memories and intuitive decisions. The slow buildup of layers interrupts functionality, and question the thresholds of comfort. cast on / bound off is at once luxurious and absurd, meticulous and rash, obsessive and banal.
In cast on / bound off, every stitch justified its existence and every color located its place within the work. I found my way there by hand: by making, un-making, ripping, knotting and knitting each piece back together until it located a new form. cast on / bound off contains the time of its making. Each fiber has been undone and reworked; a concentration of the many stitches, knots and layers before — a work, within a work, within a work — good to the last drop.
- MA & MFA, UW-Milwaukee
- BFA, UW-Stevens Point
Associate Lecturer, Fibers UW Milwaukee uwm.edu
NAFTAE 