Artist Statement
"With whispering limbs of love you seduce my soul like a willow caresses the grass."

My work is about the triumph of the spirit. I attempt to expose the multiple layers of our human existence through a process that involves dissecting, deconstructing, unraveling, and then reconstructing a variety of materials. These processes of deconstruction and reconstruction allow me to create tactile environments that expose limitations, our own and those put upon us by others through social constructs. When I use the stitched thread I am attempting to find a balance between our limitations and being limitless. I believe this is where the essence of the human spirit exists.

Human experiences including our individual and collective struggles with identity, environment, our internal and external landscape and the exposure of hidden desires are primary in my work. To accomplish these tasks I explore a variety of materials and often times use the empty garment as metaphor. I pay particular attention to the play of proportion, shape, and texture that will create volume without weight and tension within space. I combine a mixture of various materials including fiber, yarn, fabric, paper, aluminum screen, wire, plastic, branches, and video into a textural pallet of light and shadow.

In my current work I continue investigating the empty garment and its influence on visual culture, as a metaphor for societal roles and constructs. Using this powerful signifier to question our illusions of self and the struggle / desire paradox.

 

Creative Process
As our life experiences construct who we are emotionally, spiritually and physically so must our work embody the process of its own creation; in fact this is my primary focus. In the book Art and Fear, Orland and Bayles state, "Art that deals with ideas is more interesting than art that deals with technique." This represents my artistic commitment. I have always been driven to create, to make, to build, to paint, to sculpt. It is the way I communicate my human experiences. As a BFA student at Otis Art Institute I discovered that fabric would be my main element for communicating my ideas. Fabric has a transformative quality because of the interplay between flat and sculptural, movement and stillness, volume and weight. It is this transformative quality that makes fiber the perfect medium for expressing triumph of the spirit.

When I am working on my fiber pieces I ask myself: what else can be done to fibers, yarns and fabric? I attempt to answer these questions by listening and considering the voice of each strand of yarn and piece of material. It is an exploration of various textures, colors, shapes and sizes. Much like a painter mixes paint on his pallet I intuitively combine the fibers, yarns and fabrics creating a combination of light, shadow and color that will expose that which is typically hidden from view. These elements are assembled on a water soluble canvas, manipulating them through a collaging, stitching, sculpting and weaving process. I work in layers, constructing one layer of color and texture on top of another layer, on top of another layer, creating a network of structure. Once the canvas of fibers is completed a process of sculpting begins which transforms the textiles once again, creating movement through shapes that symbolically represent nature's experience and human experience. To do this it is necessary to move through this process of "create and destroy, destroy and create". This is when the balance between peace and tension, space and restriction, beauty and ugly can exist. It is then that the piece will expose the essence of its own experience and triumph of the spirit is attained.

As a graduate student my concept is to use textiles, sculpture and collage as metaphor for the inner-construction of humanity. The layers of one's experiences are just below the surface and I constantly challenge myself to reveal what is beyond body. The Poet Basho said "….the spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze". This quotation resonates with the human condition and its union with fabric.

I am always learning and attempting to advance my artistic abilities by developing a body of work that will bring creative practice to my career as an art and design educator. I have been committed to teaching art and design for the past thirteen years and find such satisfaction in unleashing the creativity of a young artist. As a more experienced artist I know I will be an even more effective educator. As the Fashion Design Department Coordinator at FIDM I was directly involved in the NASAD accreditation requirements. This experience emphasized the importance of setting the highest possible standards for myself and for the student. When expectations are high, I believe we will stretch our creativity and knowledge to far greater depths or heights then ever imagined and then our true abilities will be revealed.

 

 

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