It is nice to meet you.
My name is Nicole Havekost. I grew up in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and there were two activities I spent my youth doing: drawing and horseback riding. I left my horse with my family to go to art school, and I can tell you that making my work is just as great as those good rides on a sunny afternoon.
I went to the Rhode Island School of Design intending to be a apparel designer. My freshman year was one of profound discovery and growth. In the middle of a long night, setting a side zipper into a muslin circle skirt, I decided I couldn’t do it; fashion wasn’t enough. I took a semester off and then spent a year at the California College of Art in Oakland, California, trying every media that was available to me. I chose Printmaking as a major and received my BFA from RISD in 1994.
By the time I graduated, I was no longer making prints. Instead, I was creating small paper sculptures of dresses; dresses that were very much like dolls, but without the body. In my MFA work at the University of New Mexico I realized that the knowing the body was actually my interest and I made my first doll.
Since I received my MFA in 1997, I have always come back to the figure in my work. My own combative relationship with my body and my tenuous control of its functions has been deeply influencing in my practice. Materiality has also been a deep obsession in this exploration; once I found artists who used traditional women’s crafts to tell very contemporary stories and I knew I had found my place.
I am an artist, a mother, partner, teacher and friend. These are roles that both test and enhance my art making. I hope to face the challenges of these roles daily, with grace and wholeheartedness. These are challenges that deeply inform my work. As my son was nearing school age and there were larger blocks of time in the studio, I began creating this current group of dolls. I received a 2013 Artists Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board for it’s development and have since exhibited this work nationally. I was honored to be a Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship finalist this year. After twenty years of work now, I feel like I am just getting started.