Textile Collages
Figment
2023
handwoven leftovers, colored pencil on paper
20 x 16 inches
Curiosity pulls me toward untried challenges at the loom, and my experiments can be disappointing. Or sometimes I stumble on a discovery so exciting that I jump right into a new project, expanding on what I learned. Either way, leftover fabrics tend to accumulate. In this ongoing series, I use my collection of experimental byproducts, reducing the waste that my studio practice generates.
Working with fibers is time-intensive, but collage helps me find balance through something more immediate. It lets me access a gestural, impulsive way of working. By returning to past projects, I notice the threads that connect different ideas.
Playing Position
2023
gold acrylic and ink on graph paper, handwoven leftovers, tape
19 x 15 inches
When I sit at the loom, it feels like a piano. Sacred posture. I grew up with a piano in my basement bedroom, where I could play into the night without disturbing my parents or siblings. I would practice for the stubborn joy of chasing mastery, repeating the same phrase until I heard the music come from my fingers and not my brain. I wasn’t concerned about productivity, in fact speed was usually the enemy. Time was for spending. When I sit at the loom, my body reminds me to take pleasure, to move in rhythm and let go of the end product.
Oh Boy Here We Go
2022
handwoven leftovers, polyester american flag
20 x 24 inches
This piece is about swimming in the ocean for the first time since I stepped on a crab and was pinched, which happened just before my father was diagnosed with cancer. The piece is about returning from grief. I never thought I would overcome my fear of the unseeable, but I did, giggling in anticipation with each big wave I saw, coming to knock my feet out from under me.
Glyphosate Homestead
2023
cross stitch and handwoven leftovers
16 x 20 inches
In this piece, I’m reflecting on the loss of my family’s homestead, which was sold to pay for my father’s cancer treatment. The treatment failed.
Chokecherry trees lined our dirt road, and chokecherry jam jars lined our pantry shelves, along with the other vegetables and preserves harvested from the land. My father tamed the weeds with chemicals that were marketed as harmless and which have now been linked to lymphoma.
Stereo
2023
handwoven leftovers
18 x 14 inches
You Joy
2023
handwoven leftovers, polyester american flag
13 x 19 inches
Here I am thinking about cyclical time and false symmetry. The letters Y-O-U-J-O-Y are half of a typographic stroke away from being a palindrome.