QUILTING HAS BEEN WITH ME SINCE THE FIRST TIME I DUG THROUGH A PILE OF MY GRANDMOTHER’S FABRIC.
I return to it, over and over, because it is coming home.
In it, I find space to dream, to play, to find quiet, to be fully myself without compromise. I create sanctuary for my untamed imagination and my finely honed intuition. I connect to the long history of women’s work, find understanding of my working class roots, and engage with the autobiographical nature of quiltmaking.
MY WORK THRIVES IN THE IN-BETWEEN.
Modern and traditional, flexible and fixed patterning, craft and fine art, the digital world and the natural world, logic and magic, geometric and organic.
LIKE HEALING, QUILTING IS SLOW WORK.
It requires contemplation, the passage of time, and patient, focused dedication. I decipher emotions and time into an improvisational, abstract textile experience that is intended to been seen both domestically and publicly. Fabric is comforting; its weight and texture is familiar to my hands and body. Hand quilting is soothing; I find the repetitive and labor intensive process to be healing.
MY QUILTS ARE MADE FROM MANY PIECES OF FABRIC IN THE WAY MY LIFE IS COMPOSED OF MANY OF PIECES.
Communities, relationships, work, leisure, birth, death, joy, sorrow, contentment, dissatisfaction, order, upheaval. I gather fabrics from conventional and unconventional sources. I stitch together my story from these pieces and find a narrative to make sense of my journey. Each quilt is a document and the completion of a quilt is the close of a chapter. Like the many quiltmakers that come before me, I put my spirit, my energy, my vitality and my skill into a quilt to tell my story.
