ARTIST STATEMENT:

Myrrtz uses yarn, a computer and a knitting loom to make wall sculptures. As faces, rivers, animals, and spirits emerge from the rorschach on the screen, Myrrtz captures them and weaves them into colorful, richly textured artworks. They act as fetishes that protect and evoke specific energies in the areas they are displayed.

Myrrtz is a San Francisco-Bay Area artist.

PERSONAL STATEMENT:

My name is Myrrhia. In 7th grade my frenemy started calling me “Myrrtz” and tried to get other people to call me Myrrtz in an effort to bother me, but I actually really liked it. It never caught on.

My grandmother Phyllis taught me to knit when I was seven years old during a summer visit to Ohio. It was a hot summer so I spent most of it watching daytime TV with grandma and fiddling with yarn.

From 1996 to 2002 I was a studio potter in Santa Cruz focusing on porcelain dinnerware, and created large scale figure sculptures in collaboration with Kiki Pettit featured at the esplanade for Burning Man in 2001.

In 2005, I bought my first plastic knitting machine after seeing one at the Minnesota state fair.

In 2007 I stared selling machine-knit fingerless gloves, scarves, and tops on Etsy.

In 2010 I took out a big loan, launched a fashion line, “Myrrhia Fine Knitwear” and bought a Stoll CMS industrial knitting machine. I also created custom designs for other fashion companies.

In 2015 I shuttered Myrrhia Fine Knitwear and transitioned to industrial design, prototyping technical textiles for Bolt Threads, Google, and Bilio Group.

During the pandemic I went through a identity-shattering event of personal growth and pushed myself to start creating sculptures after a long hiatus.

In 2023 I became a mother and left industrial design. My craving to create textile patterns and sculptures compels me to continue to make these mandalas that I have been building in various media since I was about 6 years old. I never understood what they meant or why I needed to make them over and over until I read “Man and His Symbols” where he states that children draw mandalas as an effort to connect to wholeness and part as a process of individuation. I continually and compulsively create them and then stare into them.