Carter Shocket: Ephemeral Transformations
Carter Shocket is a trans and queer interdisciplinary artist from North Carolina, now based in Brooklyn, New York. Working across woven sculpture, installation, and tapestry, Shocket explores the transformative potential of queer and trans identities through process-based textile art. His ongoing project, Trans Timeographies, visualizes nonlinear queer timelines using iridescent materials like party streamers and fishing wire, creating sculptural works that refract light and reimagine time, care, and presence through a trans supernatural lens.
How did your creative journey begin?
I’ve been a creative person since childhood– doing theater, writing stories, and putting on plays. I moved to New York to work in theater and switched to visual art over quarantine in 2020. I wanted to work with my hands more, and I discovered fiber art, which is what I continue to do today. Sometimes my background in theater peeks through when I do street art or projects like the FTM Recruitment Center. I was always doing comedic plays and projects, and I think that playful sensibility will always be around in my art.
Your work explores the concept of "trans supernatural." How do you envision this idea manifesting in the physicality of your sculptures and installations?
The trans supernatural manifests in the materials, the way the work changes as it interacts with light and wind, and how you look at it. It also manifests in shape, the way my timelines diagram this lived experience of the otherworldly, and in images too. I let the supernatural seep through in many ways, and it continues to surprise me and guide me in the ways it continues to show up.
Your use of materials like mono-filament, plastics, and re-used party streamers feels like a blend of both everyday and more ephemeral materials. What role do these materials play in your work?
The materials manifest transformation and playfulness. The party streamers and monofilament alone have their own prescribed meanings, but weaving them together in the loom creates an entirely new textile that is transformed in both aesthetic and meaning. Blending the everyday and the ephemeral is another kind of magic that lives in the work.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
The first thing I do when I get into the studio is write down when I arrive so I can track how many hours per week I’ve been in the studio. After that I just dive into whatever project I have going on. My process is: prepare materials, warp the loom, weave, sculpt, install, document/assess, and repeat. This week I’m in the weaving stage, which is fun because I get to experiment with tons of different materials and see how they interact.
The biggest way my practice has changed is seeing it as a constant flow of experimentation as opposed to seeing myself as defined by products. I used to always try to make the perfect art that said the perfect thing that perfectly summed up everything about me as an artist. That’s not only impossible but extremely stressful. Now I let myself be defined by the process– that I’m there, experimenting, weaving, sculpting, and making. Just being in the studio is enough; the rest can flow and bloom as it will.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
The AIR residency at the Textile Arts Center I did for nine months in 2023-2024 changed my work the most. I learned how to weave on a floor loom— which I now am obsessed with– I started creating woven sculpture, I began to understand who I am as an artist, and I started taking myself seriously. Since March, I’ve been so lucky to rent a studio in the Textile Arts Center, and being back there has been so great for me. Walking into the building and heading to my studio reinforces to me that I’m an artist here to make experimental, inventive works, and I’m ready to continue to explore and push myself to a new level.
How has social media impacted your work?
Social media allows me to reach more of a trans audience that “gets” my work on a much more nuanced and deep level and that is rewarding. I also have switched to using a Nokia flip phone which has completely changed my life. Letting my brain be bored has been the biggest gift to my practice I could’ve ever given myself. I’ve started slipping into the deep thoughts more easily, and I am finding clarity and calm more often. So while I do value it, I am finding the best way for me is to keep it on a laptop– a place I can go to and then walk away from.
How do you envision your work evolving in the future, and what new materials or ideas might you explore?
I see myself going toward more sculpture and more explorations of the supernatural. Right now I’m working on creating woven paper airplanes that are going into and coming out of the wall. I’m excited to be experimenting with paper yarn and ink as a new medium for this project. I love exploring what materials can be woven and turned into sculpture, and I imagine as I explore, the options will only continue to expand.