Statement
Thirty years ago I became a felt-maker, having previously worked in printmaking. I’m twenty years into a shepherd’s life; twenty years from having also made the considerable shift in my art-making practice, from being a consumer of art supplies to participant in their production. My practices have become vertically integrated: I choose and breed my sheep according to the wool’s properties, ensure a good pasture, enough hay through the winter, engage a competent shearer, and a good wool mill for making natural colored bats and roving, resulting in a studio with the supplies my work requires. This investment in materiality is central and for years I worked in monochrome- the natural wool colors.
Over time I’ve wanted more color in the work which was mostly in untraditional quilting. For that hast few years color has come by way of dye-plants I’ve either grown or gathered. The work begins to include block printed surfaces. ( I’m turning dye baths into lake pigments, which become inks; these form my palette, which informs the conceptual possibilities for my work.) Additionally, my pieces sometimes repurpose objects or natural forms in service to visual metaphors.
My work comes together in an ongoing exploration of ebbs and flows of rural living and belonging to place. In over thirty years of work this has meant engaging ideas of a changing natural world and the global movements of people, as well as other fauna and flora.
Bio
A first generation American, daughter of a European immigrant mom, I was born and raised on Staten Island; ultra-urban, multi-cultural NYC meets Atlantic Ocean vistas & beaches. Fundamental to my work is an upbringing in a community of immigrants on an urban island, and a rural Western US adulthood. In my work I combine layers of imagery and multiple, often repetitive craft skills. With this craft- based process I seek to manipulate appropriate materials and skills, often cross purposing them. Often, I’m drawn into a visual exploration, gain a point of entry, and only in hindsight do I more fully understand what the work is about, and where to go with it. This leads to work in series, which is very satisfying.