Artist Statement

As a writer, reader, and fiber artist, I ground my artistic practice in the interstitial space of literary ekphrasis. I expand into this research in the echoes of writers such as Danielle Dutton and Amina Cain, by approaching ekphrasis not as a one-directional “writing about art”, but as a mutual, conversational, multi-directional dialogue between art and language. Textile, specifically, is linked to text not only through their shared etymology, but through their processes and practices: lines woven and crossed, layered over each other to create stories and narratives. I recognize the gridded and linear structures of both writing and cloth as armatures through which to physicalize the felt experience, to operate as bones on which to stand, as a net through which to catch. As writer Eileen Myles states: “the poem is a grid — that swayed, and moving through it you picked up things and hung them on the grid all the while singing your broken heart out.” 

I make grid-based sewn works of art, utilizing a minimal color palette to foreground structure and negative space. I relate back to my literary influences by embedding text into the textile structures of my pieces, often constructing letterforms out of traditional Korean Bojagi seamwork. Through this embedding, the written word’s typical function of clear, quick communication is subverted: writing becomes a vehicle for slowness, coaxing the viewer to lean in, slow down, and develop their own intimate relationship with the words in front of them. Text is dissolved into fray, suspended between stitches, or looped back onto itself in knitted structures. These works are thus in reciprocal dialogue with found literature and poetry, as well as my own memoiristic writing. 

In meeting at the intersecting node of writing and art, my practice relies on relational thinking and cross-disciplinary approaches. I sew, write, read, teach, and learn, all at this intersection.