Artist Statement

Fabric and writing both have the capacity to hold memory, to reveal and to obscure, and to keep secrets. My practice explores fibers and poetry, playfully and inquisitively, such that I can co-create with these materials in an ongoing and reciprocal dialogue. 

By embedding text into the sewn and knit structures of my pieces, I subvert the written word’s typical function of clear, quick communication; instead, writing becomes a vehicle for slowness, coaxing the viewer to lean in, slow down, and develop their own intimate relationship with the work. By playing with transparency and shadows, letters and words are selectively obstructed from view, and thus meaning is selectively obstructed from understanding. 

I am interested in allowing the materiality of the textiles to play a direct role in what is revealed to the audience. This is often an exercise in releasing control over perfectionist structures and allowing the material I work with, as co-creator, to make creative decisions over what is seen or known. These material collaborations and processes are all left visible for the viewer as draping, loose threads, frayed edges, and visible seams. Text is folded into seams, dissolved into fray, or looped back onto itself in knitted structures. 

My work bares my personal histories through memoiristic writing and artifacts from childhood, such as clothes handed down from family and old journal entries. By engaging with these deeply personal stories, I aim to honor the sense of indebtedness that keeps me in a larger community with my ancestors, friends, pets, and the wide encompassing of what I consider family.