Mindy Sue Wittock is an artist and mother who works out of her home studio in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. She makes soft sculpture that explores the intersection of childhood memory and nostalgia. Wittock has an MFA from Arizona State University with a concentration in fibers. She has previously worked as an associate lecturer of art at the University of Wisconsin Fond du Lac and the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. Wittock has an extensive exhibition record and has taught many textile-based workshops. She survives on coffee and enjoys watching vintage television shows, listening to 80’s music, and going on adventures with her husband, daughter, and pup.
Mindy Sue Wittock is also a co-founder of The Wondermakers Collective with the incredible illustrator and coffee drinker Jenna Freimuth. They work together to build beautiful, layered embroideries, pen palling them back and forth from Wisconsin to Minnesota. You can learn more about their collaborative project at: www.thewondermakerscollective.com
In my work, I use sewing and stitching techniques to create soft sculptures and textiles that are inspired by the intangible phantom of nostalgia. I collect objects and cloth to build pieces and cover surfaces that explore memory of a time passed. The act of sewing, of passing each object through my hands as I embellish, is the act of preserving the limitations of memory and fusing together the past and present with each stitch.
I wish every night when I go to bed that I can wake up in my eight year old self’s bedroom and hold all my things that comforted me just one more time. If I think about it hard enough I can almost feel like I could time travel for real but then here I am… a grown up holding onto childhood and feeling my way through the foggy depths of memory, grasping at the nostalgia.
