We haven’t ever seen images like Kayla Dantz’s before. Archival photos and slides found in family albums have, in and of themselves, an inherently nostalgic quality, and although this base material informs all of the artist’s work, her pieces seem to hide another layer of softness, homesickness or sentimentality between their carefully threaded lines.
It might not be a surprise to hear that the artist’s unique approach to photographic reproduction derives from a background in fashion design at Parson’s School of Design, where Kayla became fluent in “handmade techniques like weaving, knitting, and embroidery”, she says. Crossing this knowledge over into her other love – photography, she has developed a method of deconstructing images digitally to re-assembles them with delicate hand weaving that evokes “the quiet, fragmented nature of memory”. Within this process the artist has found a parallel between “the tactile slowness of craft traditions and the emotional immediacy of photography”.
Drawn most to personal imagery for this practice – vintage family photos from the 60s and 70s, passed down from her grandparents – Kayla’s woven originals or custom pieces for clients all aim to “explore how time distorts, preserves, and reshapes memory and identity, both symbolically and physically”, she says. “I see fabric as a medium of connection—threads crossing to make something whole—mirroring the emotional weaving that happens when we revisit the past.”
Much like her own visual explorations, Kayla is inspired by works that explore family ties or the materiality of our memories, but also takes influences from local scenery and day to day encounters, travelling around “always with my camera by my side”, she says. Much of the skill and sentiment that goes into her work was found right at home: “both of my grandmothers taught me to knit and sew as a child, and my earliest photographs were of family members and the spaces we shared. Family photographs continue to move me deeply, shaping how I approach both craft and image-making today.”