I open the door to my studio on the third floor of an old textile mill in Waltham, MA. Whether facing a piece of canvas, a slab of clay or a simple warp, the blank surface is exciting, hopeful and sometimes terrifying! My visual work is an opportunity to relay stories and memories I am thinking about and sometimes to not think at all. My process begins and the disparity of techniques and process and materials begins to take shape. I bring together my experiences as a painter, weaver, decorative painter, costume designer and time spent in Morocco. My work involves a physical engagement with troweled plasters, layered textures, painting, weaving, gilding, cutting, and embellishing, the pieces hung as tapestries or mounted on cradle board.
My “shelter” sculptures began with my interest in finding a safe space during the past few years and now take on feminine forms and individual identities. In creating identities for these iconic feminine shapes, my hope is to offer strength, safety and a collective unity. A nod to our fraying times.
As in warp and weft, an intersecting connection may bring us together. From my “Material Girls” series, I invite the viewer to interpret their own recollection of the strong women and personal, emotional and social experiences and stories that have paved the way towards finding their own identity.
With a bit of whimsy, I hope my work also projects the poignancy that tells the back story.
