I create to bring joy. My work revolves around the pompom—a collection of many individual parts, wrapped, cut apart, and tied together by a seemingly invisible thread. Through sculptures, installations, and workshops, I invite people to nurture their inner child, creating accessible spaces that encourage curiosity and playful art-making.
I love an embellishment! Jewelry, trinkets, charms, knick-knacks. Mix ‘n’ matching, personalizing, making a statement without having to use words. By bringing glass into my fiber work, I’m exploring the relationship between softness and structure. Melting glass and trimming yarn, I sculpt objects that play with color, tactility, nostalgia, and the familiar objects of everyday life. I’m drawn to the meaning we give objects through the memories, personalities, and stories we attach to them.
To me, celebrating joy and play is both an act of resistance against the gloom and a reminder that my craft is how I bring people together.--Karyn Lao
About the artist
Karyn Lao is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator whose work explores the pompom as a soft sculpture representing community—many individual parts connected by a common thread. She received her BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. In 2024, she was awarded The Bead Project scholarship at UrbanGlass, where she studied flameworking glass beads. Since then, she’s been exploring how glass and fiber intertwine in her work, sculpting pompoms and glass into colorful, functional sculptures and wearable objects that bring joy.
Karyn is also one half of the collaborative artist duo Mookntaka, creating large-scale inflatable public sculptures that bring play to unexpected places. Her work has been presented at Van Alen Institute, Powerhouse Arts, Lincoln Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, and From Here to Sunday. She has taught at the Textile Arts Center, Peters Valley School of Craft, Vogue Knitting Live, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design.
