Cate Thomding

Textile Art and Writing

I am a textile artist, writer, and editor. Welcome to my world.

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© Cate Thomding. All rights reserved.

My Work

I work primarily with recycled fabrics and canvasses, handspun wool and cotton thread, and other natural materials. Prints of the original artworks will be available soon.

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About Cate

I am a textile artist and writer living and working in central Wisconsin. I’m inspired by joy, activism for a better future, human story, and the beauty we have surrounding us every day, no matter how tiny or insignificant it may seem.Textiles and following creativity are integral to my personal and family history. Some of my most cherished childhood memories take place in my mom’s sewing room. Playing elaborate pretend games under the table while she cut and pinned. Unfolding (and eventually refolding) my way through the chest of fabric and sitting on top of it to tell her about my day. Learning to use her old Kenmore, promptly sewing through my library card while making a small bag for myself (the card still worked!). Helping my mother teach a kids sewing class and serving as a mannequin for her alteration business.Meanwhile, as my Pop-Pop taught me all about binary code on his Macintosh and showed me the many uses he had for rivets, my Nana had a fleet of sewing machines and would share all her projects with us when we came for lunch: quilts, rag dolls, and turning my childhood artwork into machine stitched replicas.My mother and I learned to crochet, and then knit, together when I was 14, and it unleashed an insatiable practice of making as I navigated young adulthood and beyond. Around the same time, I discovered my love for writing, and after studying English in college, began a career that, while it took many turns, always had a facet of words at its core.The next major shift came, as it often does, with the advent of motherhood. Nothing could have prepared me for the monumental reckoning small humans bring to a life. What did I really want my days to look like, how did I want to show up as a parent and as a person, and what example did I want to show for my kids?While the process to fully answer those questions and then rebuild was long and winding, what has emerged is not a surprise.

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