Mookie Margolis

Instagram: thebabamook

Bio: Mookie Margolis is a San Francisco artist working in textiles and painting. Their work transforms materials like rejected yarn and acrylic paint into a new form that is simultaneously personal and universal. Margolis attended their freshman and sophomore year at San Francisco Art Institute, where they were the recipient of the President’s Scholarship. This merit scholarship was awarded to only two students per year. After the closure of SFAI, Margolis transferred to the California College of the Arts. They were awarded the CCA’s Faculty Honors Scholarship Award, the Craft Forward Scholarship, the Goldenberg Scholarship, and the Lucille Knutson Leslie Scholarship based on outstanding creative ability and academic achievement.

Statement: My name is Mookie Margolis. I’m a non-binary person born and raised in San Francisco. I strive to dive deeper into my inner dialog between connection and disconnection by creating new metaphorical self-portraits of capsules, asexual planarian forms, and amphibious structures through sculpting, textiles, and painting. Through this conversation with myself, I want to transform existence from awareness to spiritual bliss. I knit the rectangular forms with a mashup of torn-up fabric yarn and delicate wool and cotton threads. The three voids in between are made of wool and silk noil. I paint all the shapes with synthetic dyes. I crochet ovals and apply layers of acrylic paint on top to create a hard surface. Crocheting fibers together represents a way of reflecting on my inner dialog to better connect with people. In contrast, the layers of paint I apply into the connecting fibers of the soft shapes created a hard shell that heightens my awareness of the destructive act of freezing the self to avoid emotional injury.