recent nosees
the story behind the nostrils
In my thirties when I first met two new-to-me family members - who donned the same nose as I - my perception of my nose changed. The shame I held from an elementary school taunt was replaced with a deep sense of belonging and pride.
I like to say that these two women gave me my first nose job.
As an artist, I felt called to sculpt a reminder of this connection. Since then I have created sculptures - bespoke, limited edition and readymade - that invite people to reconnect with themselves and others through memory, scent, breath and form.
Whether you love your nose or are on the path to doing so, I offer you a different kind of nose job - one that shifts your perspective not your profile.
When I sit with a collector, and ultimately their nose, I do so with great care and humility. My nose jobs serve as reminders; to breathe deeper, slower, to savor the smell of the ocean breeze, to honor the many ways it connects us to ourselves and others and to consider that the very thing that makes us different may in fact be our superpower.
From my nose to yours,
Kat Geng-Caraballo, sculptor
your story sewn into the seams
With your most prominent feature as the guide, and fabric as the storyteller your custom nose will hold your narrative with the utmost care and intention.
your nose as the guide
Each sculpture relies on a series of high resolution photos that inform every slope, freckle and bend of the nose shaping process. This enables patrons far and wide to partake in the process. It also offers a moment to pause and take a focused look at a feature we often over-examine and underappreciate.
fabric as storyteller
Whether you choose your skin tone for The Noseworthy from an ever-expanding selection of cotton fabrics, opt for a bold reclamation with the deep purple of The Au Nostural or integrate your favorite well worn sweater into The Nosetalgic, you are crafting your narrative through its softness, its color and its symbolism.
Our lives are filled with fabric - to clothe us, to comfort us, and to protect us - and these tactile moments give us a feeling of tenderness and caretaking that transfers to each and every nose.
a one-on-one with the artist
You will meet with the artist for a one hour one-on-one over zoom. If you are gifting a nose to a loved one then you are sent on a super sleuth mission and we reconvene to share your discoveries during this call. If this nose is to honor yourself, then we gather all your noseworthy details and choose your fabric.
In both circumstances, the details we gather will be woven into your fabric nose and your Certificate of Authenticity to infuse your nose with intention making it a highly personalized artwork with layers of meaning.
What makes the nose so special?
why not eyes and ears?
While we adore our eyes and ears - not a bad word to say about them - our noses rest quite literally at the center of our faces and our identities. They filter, warm and humidify the air we breathe making nostril-breathing the healthiest and most efficient method of breathing (no offense, mouth). Our odor-evoked memories are our most emotional and detailed recollections reaching back to the moments before we even had words to express them. This makes smell arguably our strongest sense and one deeply tied to our sense of well-being and connection with others.
But wait, that’s only a glimpse of our nose’s superpowers…
Our noses make oven-fresh chocolate chip cookies hard to resist, let us savor a spicy wine and have the power - through deep breathing - to relax our very nervous system. That is just the tip of the iceberg but let’s be honest, what feels more central to life than our breath?
Plus, we each have our own signature nose shape gifted from our ancestors, a beautiful form that provides an exquisite and satisfying challenge to the sculptor. All of this makes them extra special to us.
sniff out the sculptor
Kat Geng-Caraballo is a Colombian-American sculptor and project-based artist. Her projects esteem the absurd alongside the serious, in order to soften the lens through which we see ourselves and the world.
By Word of Nose is her latest project that imagines a fresh perspective on the everyday.
Learn more about Kat Geng-Caraballo
The ways we honor the schnoz
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Nose Sculptures
Visual artist Kat Geng-Caraballo offers custom nose portraits (aka Nose Jobs) and limited edition nose-adjacent sculptures.
Kat’s nose sculptures are made of everything from hand-dyed cotton fabric to repurposed egg carton paper pulp to lost wax cast bronze, each harnessing a different storytelling power.
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Community engaged projects
By Word of Nose invites diverse communities across the globe to contribute to a growing collection of visual, oral and written nasal narratives that speak to the ways this cartaligenous feature is central to our lives.
Ongoing and always evolving arts and letter writing initiatives - including To My Beloved Nose, Nasal Narratives and The By Word of Nose News(paper) - are made available to the public digitally and through spontaneous pop ups across New York City.
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Art Workshops
We offer bi-lingual nose making workshops for arts and non-profit organizations looking to explore the nose as a source of well being, connection and belonging.
These may be facilitated in English and Spanish inviting participants with varied levels of fluency to learn practical sewing, sculpting and spanish and english language skills while in community.
what our nosees say
to my beloved nose,
In my ongoing letter writing intitative, To My Beloved Nose, I invite people to sit down with pen and paper in hand and write a letter ‘to my beloved nose’. I hold onto their letter until the moment feels right and I mail it back to them, as a serendiptuous reminder from themselves.
You can read some of the submitted letters here