Statement

I am a mixed media artist who works with fabric. My mother taught me how to sew during my childhood, and I studied textiles in art school.

My artwork is a combination of printmaking, painting, and collage, on fabric. I am very interested in working with the different grid patterns of construction fences.

My interest in using construction fences started in 2002 when I started seeing different patterns, shapes, and sizes, as they were being used at many construction sites as a barrier to keep people safe by blocking off the site.

On hot days the fences can get limp and sag, and on cold days they sometimes crack and break. At times my use of the printed fence follows the grid, and at other times I like to break it apart, the same as can happen in the life of an actual construction fence.

After I monoprint the textures of fences on fabric, I also incorporate additional painting and collage techniques. I also often stitch the fabric by following the grids of the fence pattern.

The size of my work varies from as small as 6 inches to all the way up to 35 feet. I really enjoy creating work that is small to extremely large, and the challenges that come working in different formats. 

For my wall pieces, I sometimes mount the fabric on boards, and other times the fabric is stiffened with matt medium so it looks like paper or plastic. If a piece incorporates an upcycled tablecloth, it hangs a normal pice of fabric.

My installations are created using one piece of monoprinted fabric that is stiffened with matt medium which also makes it weather-proof. Some of my installation pieces have been exhibited outside for more than 18 months and do quite well after having full sun exposure, and after being rained and snowed on.

For my Wordle Series, I started do daily Wordle puzzles in November 2023, many years after my friends and family members were doing it. I have never been good at word puzzles and surprised myself after trying it, because it was not the struggle I thought it would be and I am actually good at. I started to see patterns, so I made screenshots and saved them in an album on my iPhone after completing each one. After saving many months of screenshots, I started to document my results in my artwork. The first paintings incorporate vintage embroidered or appliquéd tablecloths, thinking back to my younger years when all puzzles and games were done on a table, whether a jigsaw puzzle completed directly on the table, or while sitting at the table trying to solve a puzzle in a newspaper, magazine or book.

In my Loss Series, I tell my story about having had a mother had untreated mental health issues and how that affected me as a child and as an adult. After she died in 2021, I started in to incorporate hand embroidered fabrics I had found in her house, and on eBay, in my work. I incorporate pieces of monoprinted construction fence fabric as a metaphor for the boundaries I had to set with my mother, combined with the meticulously stitched and colorful vintage embroideries I acquired.