Artist Biography

Tracy Krumm is an artist and educator who has exhibited, taught, and lectured extensively for nearly 30 years.  Her work integrates hand-constructed textile processes with found materials and forged steel to comment on labor, identity, human connectivity, and cultural production. Her current work investigates the intersection of creative experience, simultaneous occurrence, and transformation. The manipulation of form through low tech and high tech processes, along with explorations in material studies, are at the core of her research.

Krumm has exhibited internationally in over 175 gallery and museum exhibitions during the past 25 years including the Cheongju Biennial, South Korea; the Triennial of Textiles, Central Museum, Lodz, Poland; the 4th Betonac Prize, Sint Truiden, Belgium; the New Mexico Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, where she was named a Woman to Watch in 2012. 

She received her BFA with High Distinction from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1987 and her MFA in visual art from Vermont College in 1995. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer at numerous institutions since 1990 including Virginia Commonwealth University's Craft and Material Studies Program, the Witt Visiting Artist Program at the University of Michigan, Cranbrook, the Memphis College of Art, UC Santa Cruz, the University of Montana, Anderson Ranch, Arrowmont, Haystack, and Penland. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor and Associate Member of the Graduate Faculty in Art + Design from 2006-2008 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh; an Assistant Professor in the Fiber Department and Community Arts and Service Learning Program at the Kansas City Art Institute from 2008-2012 (Lecturer 2003 – 2006); and an Associate Lecturer in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin- River Falls from 2015 – 2016.

Grants and awards include a 2015/16 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, a 2017 MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and residencies at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, MD and THREAD, a creative content studio in Minneapolis, MN. Two residency grants from the International Folk Art Foundation in 2007 and 2008 allowed her to collaborate with nearly 1,000 community participants to complete Big Fiber: Human Tools, a series of four site-specific installations on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, NM.

Numerous publications have featured her work, including The New York Times, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Metalsmith, Sculpture Magazine, American Craft, Fiber Arts, Surface Design Journal and Textil Forum. Collections include the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, the Denver Art Museum, Kansas State University, Bloomingdale's, the US Embassy in Djibouti, the Four Seasons Hotel in Abu Dhabi, the New Mexico Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Ford Motor Company, and the Clorox Corporation. 

Krumm is Director of Artistic Advancement at Textile Center in Minneapolis, a Community Faculty Member at Metro State University, and maintains a studio practice in St. Paul, MN.

Artist in Residence
Thread Connected Content
Tracy Krumm is a 2017 fiscal year recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.