Advanced Fiber Studio (Highlights)
I take techniques I have mastered as a child to knit colorful, soft, and joyful objects in an attempt to reappropriate trauma. I use items with a history; found fabrics, thrift store yarn and old clothes to create my boondoggles*. I work with materials and techniques that are accessible, intuitive, and playful.
My art is customizable, wearable and fully interactive. I set up a piece by crafting components and constructing them in such a way that they represent a moment in my life. Then I give viewers the option to play with my art so that they can create their own moment. Playing with pain allows for me to find humor where I might have only seen tragedy.
I find it difficult to communicate pain, which is why I make the art. The the process of making and sharing what I create has slowly helped me to heal myself, and I have begun to be more vocal, more open, more vulnerable outside of my work. My most recent piece, a quilt made on behalf of my incarcerated relative is my first major reach outside my own pain into someone else’s. I have been knitting myself back together, and as I begin to feel whole, I am hoping to help others do the same.
*Boon: meaning a thing that is helpful or beneficial and doggle: a child’s marble