Artist Statement

Amassing, repeating, translating. 

Memory, uncertainty, impermanence.

Build a monument to untrustworthy memories,

reiterate them again,

build it up and pull it apart;

look for clues,

build it again. 

My work acts as a framework for individual stories of the viewer. 

Fill in the details; hopes, fears, desperation, love.

I create the structure and in doing so,

the agreement that I will also carry the burden of those emotions.

Research Statement

Unacknowledged global and gendered labor lies at the heart of the three interdependent branches of my professional experience; studio practice-based creative research, industry-driven field research, and pedagogy.

My ongoing creative research, publications, and exhibitions center queer feminine voices through archival and data-driven investigations of gendered labor and inherited memory. Vernacular, domestic objects become storytellers that propel speculative feminine lives into our present and the future. My earliest memories are of quilting, knitting, and sewing lessons taught by my mother and paternal grandmother. Utilitarian textiles made for warmth, comfort and protection are also expressions of inherited knowledge; quiet acts of teaching and production that are taken for granted. Familial care and collaborative creation become fragile monuments for quiet contemplation of integral societal work. I posit that feminine/queer labor and self-sacrifice are the often-unacknowledged raw material of our present; directing our attention to this truth could lead us to a more caring future. 

My most recent works, to raise, are quilted white flags that evoke surrender. The hand-appliqued naturally-dyed cochineal-pink text reads, “to allow yourself to be forgiven,” “to find a way forward,” and “to follow yourself back.” Together, the three flags embody emotional vulnerability as they form a collective poem — a reminder that it is never too late to try again — a commitment to perseverance and steadfastness modeled by my foremothers.

Our collective well-being depends on a holistic return to small-scale processes and sustainable materials, to prioritize skills-based knowledge. In my own practice, I strive to use only biodegradable, responsibly harvested materials, and increasingly incorporate post-consumer recycled content in my processes and finished works. My research will continue to call attention to systems of invisible labor and the fragility of our human bodies in relation to our wounded ecosystems.