Advanced Fiber Studio (Highlights)
I enjoy laughing at the ridiculousness of culture and the oddities in life. Using fibers and printmaking as my mediums, I employ the intense processes that are inherent to these practices to enhance the amount of time and effort put into each piece. Both printmaking and fibers require knowledge for process; meaning that a drawn line must be painstakingly burned, etched, carved, and then printed or repeatedly stitched and sewn. I emphasize the absurdities of my subject matter by enlarging their size, embellishing them with gold-flecked fabric, or by oversimplifying the subject in order to glorify it with a childish attitude.
The sources of my imagery are appropriated from venues such as pop culture (movies and television shows) and my memories of childhood. I translate the folly of American culture through the materiality of my pieces. The amount of labor put into my work is contradictory to the themes, ultimately because the images are from lowbrow Midwestern and Ozark culture that are insignificant to the processes. This highlights the tension between time, craft, and the humorousness of ideas being used. My work is a celebration and acknowledgement of the failures and oddities within a culture that I am immersed in. I am not laughing from an outsider’s view, I am a participant in the culture that I am critiquing.