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Apron Strings Series
Apron Strings is a body of artwork that explores the complex relationships we have with our children. This is a stitched meditation on motherhood—marking the countless moments of passage until we set our sons and daughters loose into the world.
53 x 54”, Cotton, linen, found quilt, buttons
43 x 57”, Cotton, linen, found quilt, buttons
55 x 43”, Cotton, linen, fgound quilt, buttons
Cotton, linen, 48 x30”
Cotton, linen, 47 x 30”
Cotton, linen and buttons, 36 x 34 x 2”
Cotton, linen, buttons, 28 x 26 x 2”
These amulet bundles are wrapped meditations on motherhood. Worries and fears for our children are bundled up and tied, held tightly inside protective layers of cloth.
During a winter season of uncertainty, I created a series of textile shields to ward off the circular thoughts of sleepless nights and to calm my anxieties for a world turned on end. Through the making, I rediscovered the protective properties of mindfully sewing stiches, slowly and by hand.
Cotton, wool, buttons, 48 x 34 “
Cotton, wool, buttons, 48 x 34”, private collection
Cotton, wool, buttons, 48 x 34”
The Wisdom Cloak series is a tribute to the accumulated knowledge, experience and maturity of women, so often unrecognized and rarely celebrated. A primitive needle is sewn into each cloak, to honor the generations of women who have gone before us, stitching paths to a world of strength and beauty.
These cloaks are sewn from repurposed wool and wool felt. There is some needlefelting and wool applique, and a lot of embroidery. These are large works (about 60 inches wide).
These sculptural breastplates of women’s personal protective equipment (PPE) present a visual testament to the resilience of women during trying times. Somehow, amidst challenges and difficulties, we manage to clothe ourselves in an armor of fortitude, preserve a sense of humor and perspective, and then face forward. After all, women are so often the heavy lifters for real and sustainable change.
The breastplates are made of several layers of repurposed textile material, then embroidered and stiffened over a plastic torso form. Sometimes small objects have been embedded in the surface. I made these at home and in my backyard during the summer of 2020.
Recollected is a visual narrative about the lost provenance of domestic handwork. I have collected so many lovely handmade things, crafted by unknown hands and found in closets and boxes, sold in lots or pieces at estate sales and flea markets. In the stream of time, the maker is lost to memory and all that remains are the threads of her labors.
Gathered In is a reflection on the countless generations of women who have made useful and lovely things by hand. Thousands of stitches honor the cloth keepers, the ones who save and gather in the textile legacy of their lives and the lives of all the women who stitched before them.
Gloves: This series began with a curious stash of gloves, all fibers and colors, worn and damaged. Stitched over many months, it slowly evolved into a familiar story of time and loss.
54 x 30”, cotton, linen, found domestic textiles, hand embroidered and stitched.
54 x 30”, cotton, linen, found domestic textiles, hand embroidered and stitched
54 x 30”, cotton, linen, found domestic textiles, hand embroidered and stitched
38 x 38”, cotton, linen, found domestic textiles, hand embroidered and stitched
36 x 35”, cotton, linen, found domestic textiles, hand embroidered and stitched
39 x 32”, cotton, linen, found handkerchiefs, hand embroidered and stitched
38 x 32”, cotton, linen, found handkerchiefs, hand embroidered and stitched
53 x 34”, wool, mixed fiber found gloves, hand embroidered and stitched
53 x 34”, wool, mixed fiber found gloves, hand embroidered and stitched
This work began with the discovery of a dozen white cotton dress shirts, wadded into a box in a dark basement corner. The toil of weekly laundry; washing, bleaching, line drying, starching and pressing, took many hours, and untold energy. It is no surprise that my mother was an early adopter of permanent press, or that these shirts were cast off at the first opportunity. I can still smell the freshly hung laundry and the spray starch she used as she dutifully ironed six white shirts a week. Many years later, the shirts provided me with a blank slate for mark-making and fabric manipulation in a visual exploration of connections between women, work and textiles.
I have dedicated this series to the Dr. Ruth Benerito (1916-2013), a USDA chemist credited with the discovery and development of permanent press, wrinkle-free cotton.
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, painted and dyed, hand embroidered and stitched. 44” x 41”
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched. 44” x 44”
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched. 45” x 42”
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched. 45 x 43”
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched. 45 x 43”
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, silk noil, hand embroidered and stitched. 47 x 44”
Territorial Road was inspired by a diary entry, written by Susan Brackney Clayton in 1890. From a sod house on a homestead near Elton, Nebraska, her words tell of beauty in the expanse of land and sky, the constantly howling wind, loneliness and a deep longing for a life left behind in Indiana. This piece is called Crosses and Losses, after a patchwork pattern dating back to the time of westward expansion, speaking to hardship and the isolation of a woman uprooted.
Words out loud, noisy and insistent. The language of change.
In March of 1911, horrified New Yorkers watched as garment workers, mostly young immigrant women and girls, plunged to their deaths from the burning upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The doors to the workroom were locked, the elevator stopped operating and the flimsy fire escape collapsed. I used a delicate shirtwaist blouse from that time to imagine a terrible choice; to perish in the flames or step off the window ledge.
The Standing Amazed series draws on imagery from my many years as a public school art teacher. My youngest students were learning to use scissors for the first time, and I had them work together in groups of three or four, cutting and arranging shapes and pasting them onto a larger piece of paper. Cutting shapes from felted wool was much the same, though I attached my shapes with thousands of stitches, while my kindergartners used glue, with equal abandon.
The connection between women, work and textiles is a recurring theme in my art work. I often use old, repurposed materials and enjoy the idea of working with fibers that have passed through other, sometimes unknown, hands. The quilts in the series, A History of Toil, serve both as a textile record and a tribute to the changing nature of women’s work.
A History of Toil is an ongoing series of medallion quilts created from found household linens and work clothes, with references to well-known quilt patterns. I am exploring connections between work, textiles and the lives of women.
This piece is from a series of four quilts created in the months after my mother fell and broke her hip. Working on these pieces gave me quite some time to reflect on the fragile nature of our steps, mindful that the smallest stumble can set in motion a chain of life-changing events.
In our throw-away world, we are losing the cultural wisdom we need to reclaim and repair the fabric of our lives. Constructed from the domestic textile detritus of the everyday; small pieces that have been saved and repurposed, patched and mended.
The Lost Art of Mending is part of a series that explores a loss of cultural wisdom, and honors the slow process of repair. This quilt is constructed from the domestic textile detritus of the everyday; small pieces that were saved by someone unknown, and now repurposed into a new whole.
