Advanced Fiber Studio (Highlights)
I examine minutiae of nature and symptoms of decay—textures of erosion, color or the absence of it, patterns and their breakdown, the tangibility of objects that comes specifically from wear.
To this end, organic and inorganic objects I find in everyday life and in my travels play a large role in my work. The Lake Michigan beach near my home offers up a never-ending supply of weathered objects and scraps. Each item—a piece of metal rusted and bent and hammered by the waves, a shred of rubber with a faintly visible tread, a mesh of oddly-bent wires—acts as a repository for a memory we will never know. For me there is magic in the discovery of these items.
My body of work has two main directions. The first is sculptural, joining found objects together through crochet or other means, creating pieces that sit on a surface or fit the body. The second is the compression of some characteristics of these objects into a 2D format, for example printing the objects, embroidering into the prints, layering them and cutting away the layers to reveal what is underneath.
I hope, through my work, to reveal the specific beauty these objects contain, a worth that can only have come about through their neglect, erosion and decay.