Caitlin McCormack

Photo credit: Harman Projects

Caitlin McCormack was four years old when their Italian grandmother taught them to crochet. Decades later, they still work with thread inherited from the family, some of it left over from the Great Depression. McCormack soaks the crocheted cotton in glue and pigment until it hardens into delicate, bone-like sculptures.

They Come Back But They're Never The Same III - Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, and enamel paint on found object assemblage, 2023, Photo credit: Jason Chen

Up close, the pieces look like odd little creatures, plants, and minerals, solid but somehow coming apart at the same time. McCormack uses the crochet to deal with hard things: queerness, mental illness, a general dread about the state of the world. Folk patterns, natural history museums, and horror films all show up in the work.

Earth Before Eyeballs Existed - Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, enamel paint, nail polish, beads, found objects, mixed-media shelf, 2025, Photo credit: Jason Chen

You Picked The Wrong One - Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, enamel paint, and plaster on mixed-media display object, 2025, Photo credit: Jason Chen

Based in Philadelphia, McCormack has exhibited at the Mütter Museum, Museum Rijswijk, and the Taubman Museum of Art, and their sculptures have appeared in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and Smithsonian. They teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and won the Woodmere Art Museum’s Maurice Freed Prize in 2023.