ARTIST STATEMENT
A few years ago, as a joke, I bought a copy of Are You My Mother?—a book from my childhood. I told a friend it read like a biography of my dating life: partners “asking” me, through their behavior, to be their mother. It was funny until I realized the punchline was me. I kept repeating the pattern, conditioned to nurture, to over-give, to martyr myself. That reflex caused me harm. Asked Every Guy I Ever Dated is a protest built in yarn and repetition, rejecting the roles women are trained to play. It exposes the absurdity of infantilized men, while functioning as self defense training. I gutted the nostalgic children’s book by carving forty-two copies with a scroll saw, hollowing them out and answered the question with unapologetic repetition: No. No. No. The books are stitched into granny squares, mimicking the crocheted baby blankets my grandmother made.
I am an interdisciplinary artist working in fiber, sculpture, installation, and film. My work explores feminist resistance, personal mythology, and intergenerational healing—reprogramming inherited narratives through craft, protest, and absurdity. I examine the quiet conditioning of female socialization and satirically weaponizes “women’s work” like care taking, and craft to confront ideologies that strip autonomy. Using found objects and everyday materials, I reframe traditionally feminized labor as acts of defiance, storytelling, and self-actualization. It is my hope that reframing and altering these objects of memory encourages folks to challenge their own origin stories – what is theirs and what was given to them.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jen LaMastra is an interdisciplinary artist working in fiber, sculpture, installation, and film. Her work explores feminist resistance, personal mythology, and intergenerational healing—reprogramming inherited narratives through craft, protest, and absurdity. LaMastra’s wearable sculptures have been exhibited at Portland International Airport, Disjecta, and the Contemporary Museum of Art and Craft. She was the winner of the Junk to Funk Recycled Fashion Show Contest, a Drammy Award recipient for costume design, and a GLEAN Residency artist. Jen is the instigator of The Liberty Crochet Mural, a nationwide fiber protest mobilizing hundreds of artists in response to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Relocating from Portland, Oregon, she now lives in Chicago, where she is an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and recipient of the Visionary Scholarship for experimental practice and social impact.
© Jen LaMastra