As I stare at a body of water, I am entranced by the undulating of ovals into lines as they reflect every known color across a fluid surface. It is rhythm. It is always changing. It breaks its own rules. I’m mesmerized by this natural complexity and how it brings me peace. Textile holds a parallel. The fiber is the water. The warp is the waves. The dye or the weft is the reflected color. In my work, I make natural dyes, collect second-hand materials, and found-objects. Through combinations of weaving, dying, and sewing I put them in situations and relationships that I negotiate and work to resolve. Sometimes they are decorative, sometimes wearable, sometimes hung on a wall. As a human, I cannot orchestrate the natural beauty of water's surface, but as a textile artist, I can harness materials and techniques that contain rhythm, chance, life experience and social context into their own resolution–their own form of peace.
June 2022