Fiber has been my passion for as long as I can remember. I learned to knit at age 5, and as a teenager began making my own clothes in colors such as teal and purple which my mother thought was outrageous.
Later, I used a small settlement from a car accident to buy a secondhand loom. I started making and wearing handwoven clothing, and when people asked me where I got them, I realized that I might be able to sell what I made. Weaving was a great thing for me to do while also caring for a small child, and for two and half years I made and sold hundreds of pieces of handwoven clothing.
Eventually, practicalities took over. Since I was not able to make (enough) money from my art, I had to focus on the non-artistic work for which I was trained and put my fiber art on the back burner for several decades. While working to pay the bills, I stoked my passion for fiber by sewing and making quilts in evenings and weekends. Initially, my quilts were traditional, but when I saw my first art quilts, I was hooked and started shifting direction. I struggled to find my own voice in this new realm.
Once retired, I was able to devote much time to my lifelong fiber passion. To learn more and improve my skills, I began taking workshops from inspiring teachers such as Jan Myers-Newbury, Carol Soderlund, Elin Noble, Mary Taylor, Beatriz Grayson and Joan Schulze. In 2010, I took a shibori dyeing workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts that changed my life and the direction of my work. It inspired me to create my own fabrics from white or black cloth and to incorporate much larger pieces of fabric into my work than I had previously done. Now, all my work starts with white fabric or paper and evolves from there.
Over the years, I have experimented with many surface design techniques including printing, painting on fabric and paper, silk screening, snow dyeing, rust dyeing, and botanical printing. I have also started to work with other materials than fabric, especially paper. Increasingly, I’m combining paper and fabric in my large-scale pieces. Recently, I started making smaller paper collages, using paper that I have printed, painted or dyed. This is a counterpoint to the larger-scale work I’ve created up to now, and I will be interested to see how this new form evolves.
My work is generally abstract and inspired by my materials, though sometimes the work of another artist, in a completely different medium, stimulates a new idea. A couple of years ago, I began a series about cities, entitled Urbana. One of the joys of cities are its layers, resulting from development over centuries and the influx of many kinds of people, all of whom eventually leave their imprint. As these layers peel away, they reveal much of what happened in the past. I have tried to portray this sense of layering and complexity in the pieces in this series.
My work has been exhibited throughout the United States in many group and solo exhibitions.
Professional Affiliations
SDA (Surface Design Association)