Series Statements
The overriding intent of my work is to make tangible a sense of reverence, dignity, and peace, in a world where these are easily lost, without dismissing the realities and severity of our struggles. I am gratified when viewers tell me, they want to walk into the work and stay there, breathe in the color and heal.
A teacher who suffered a nervous breakdown after a student put a gun to her head, cried before my work and thanked me for the peace it brought. A psychiatrist told me she uses my work to clear her mind between clients, a CEO said my weaving centers her every morning before she goes out. A professor spent part of every lunch break in an exhibit of my work, to revive for his afternoon challenges. A concert pianist whom I have never met, wrote to tell me he keeps an image of my work on his piano, a hairstylist keeps one at her station.
The finite inspiration for a work may be something small; a piece of dried desert grass, a sentence from literature or sacred texts, an arroyo rock, the color of a wing. Yet I weave the horizon, light. The effect is both detailed and expansive. I see in both the small and the vast an eternal stillness, the promise of qualities worth living and struggling for.
When I weave I work quietly, making color decisions, marking time, thread by thread, strip by strip, honing my focus in hopes of intensifying my intent and supporting others in living their own best intentions, their own integrity. I use linen thread because it creates intense visceral color, an ethereal sheen and a quality of intimate tactile connection. I have faith that beauty which connects us can be profound and is severely needed to counteract the current heightened cultural divisiveness and anxiety.
This series is a precursor to my current work and partially inspired by a month I spent in India. A colleague there exclaimed to me, “To us color is life!”
ReverenceIt is my hope that this series helps us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary – to know the sacred through all experience. I have retained from the craft tradition a less Eurocentric view of art, and value craftsmanship and spiritual growth through the creative process.
CelebrationThis series is a celebration of creation and a witness to the still point.
Ryoan-jiI am fascinated by the distillation of spiritual values in complete visual abstraction and have profound respect for Zen gardens and the Rothko Chapel. The objective of this series was to make tangible a perception of the transient and the infinite at once.
CycleIn 1976 I decided to explore sculptural form through coiling, which until then, to the best of my knowledge, had been used solely for container forms, traditionally associated with basketry. After a year of experimentation I settled on a series of spirals I entitled Cycles. My intent was to give a sense of the infinite; an awareness of patience and perseverance.
When I created these twelve foot crochet works, I was reflecting on the elemental forces in the cycles of life. For example, Pod was inspired by a corn field in early spring. Last year’s stalks were tan and beaten down, yet the earth was pregnant with life.