Photo by Emily Tirella
Jessamy Shay Kilcollins (b. 1984, Maine, USA) is a textile artist, mender, and sustainable fashion designer. She uses secondhand materials and handcraft processes to interrogate the roles of consumption and consumerism in modern society. Since 2022, she has been releasing creatively mended and upcycled garments made from textiles which might otherwise end up in the global waste stream under the label AMENDED. As part of her mission to educate others about the importance of textile repair and reuse, she teaches mending in the Boston area, and has taught at the The Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts, and the Cambridge and Somerville Public Libraries, among others. She also offers garment repair services to the general public.
Jessamy holds a BFA in Fibers and a Certificate in Fashion Design from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In January 2020, she was one of eight designers from the Northeast selected to participate in a sustainable fashion design competition called Project Upcycle, and was awarded second place for her gala look sewed from repurposed materials. She also co-owns High Energy Vintage with her partner in Somerville MA, where they live with two cats and way too many chairs in an old nut factory.
artist statement
My work explores color, texture, and sustainability through upcycling and visible mending. Upcycling is a process of transforming used or secondhand materials into an entirely new object of even greater value, and visible mending prioritizes artistic embellishment and beauty in textile repair. I use almost exclusively second hand materials, and integrate traditional handcraft processes like embroidery, applique, and darning to interact thoughtfully and intentionally with the innate histories of these materials. Vintage and antique textiles like handkerchiefs and napkins are freed from the confines of the linen closet, their colors and patterns on display, and small fabric offcuts are saved from the scrap bin and kept out of the waste stream. By utilizing materials that might otherwise end up as trash, along with labor intensive handcraft techniques, my work disrupts a toxic system that espouses throwaway culture and views human labor as something to be exploited.
The human experience is intimately entangled with fabric: we show the world who we are through our clothing choices; we keep ourselves warm with quilts passed down through generations. Textiles are so ubiquitous that some become easy to overlook, like the tattered jeans living at the bottom of a drawer, long ago replaced by a brand new pair, or the cashmere sweater hanging in the back of the closet, speckled with moth holes, unwearable but seemingly too nice to simply throw away. I seek to reconnect with these forgotten textile items, contrasting themes of memory, comfort, and tradition with our current rapid pace of modern existence.
CV
EDUCATION
2019 Fashion Design Certificate, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston MA
2007 BFA Fibers, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston MA
EXHIBITION HISTORY
2024 Somerville Open Studios, Somerville MA
2024 Artwear: The SOS Fashion Show, Somerville MA
2023 Massart Design Biennial, Boston MA
2023 Somerville Open Studios, Somerville MA
2020 Project Upcycle, 3S Artspace, Portsmouth NH
2019 Lucid, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston MA
2018 MassArt x Eileen Fisher, Eileen Fisher, Chestnut Hill MA
2016 Site-specific woven installation, Starlabfest Music & Arts Festival, Somerville MA
2012 Blank Land, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance CA
2007 Oh Nancy, Otherside Cafe, Boston MA
2005 Uncommon Threads, Student Life Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston MA
2005 Big Trouble in Little China, The Elevated Gallery, Boston MA
2005 Word of Mouth: Works on Paper, Rhys Gallery, Boston MA
2005 All School Show, Student Life Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston MA
2004 The Danger Show, Tower Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston MA.
TEACHING ARTIST EXPERIENCE
2024 Medford Public Library
2024 Boston Public Library
2024 Malden Public Library
2024 Watertown Public Library
2023-Present Patagonia, Cambride MA
2022-Present Somerville Public Library, Somerville MA
2022-2024 Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, Jamaica Plain MA
2022-Present Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge MA
2022 Make & Mend, Somerville MA
RELATED EXPERIENCE
2023 Speaker, Rags To Riches Virtual Textile Upcycling Summit, programmed by Crispina ffrench
2021 Costume Designer, Some Stranger’s Stomach, directed by Michael Elliott Dennis
2020-Present Tailor, Mending Pop-up Events with We Thieves, Cambridge MA
2019-2021 Clothing repair and alterations, freelance
2019 Tailor, Mendi’s Boston Style Revival at Artisan’s Asylum, Somerville MA
AWARDS
2020 Second Place, Project Upcycle, 3S Artspace, Portsmouth NH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sara Lang, “Make do and mend: As landfills grow, people opt for needle and thread,” Christian Science Monitor, March 3, 2023. https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2023/0303/Make-do-and-mend-As-landfills-grow-people-opt-for-needle-and-thread
Jane Milburn, "Jessamy Kilcollins enjoys the thrill of sewing garments that fit her body," YouTube [Video], May 30, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp2S9HS98e4
Jeanné McCartin, “Project Upcycle competition culminates Nov. 7 in virtual broadcast,” Seacoastonline, November 6, 2020. https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/entertainment/2020/11/06/project-upcycle-competition-culminates-nov-7-virtual-broadcast/6185533002/