I never know what to say in these paragraphs. How much information is too
much, how to leave the audience wanting just a bit more? I long to tell you
of my Harper Lee childhood, spent like Scout with my many cousins, playing
with sparklers on warm July nights. How no one realized I needed glasses until
I was ten, and how that made me focus on the details of the close-up; the
colors and patterns of familiar cloth, the scents and sounds of those glorious
moments. The father who decorated envelopes before putting them in the mailstream
and painted funky cartoons on car trunks, and the mother who would take me
to Lee Ward's and who subscribed to Carol Duvall's craft newsletter. The wonderful
baroque green circus wagon with its brass rimmed bright red wheels and the
bounty of Prismacolor pencils that would fill it. Getting punch out models
of the lunar module from Dave at the Gulf station and having to admit to my
mother that I'd stuck my hands together with the chewing gum she had told
me to leave in my mouth. Saturday dinners after church at Howard Johnson's:
turquoise and orange decor, and funky punch-out menus, though I always chose
the turkey and stuffing. All the little details that add up and make their
way into my work, whether in a color chosen to define a bird's wing or in
a found object rescued from the trash. All of this and more is who I am and
where I come from. This I would share with you.
Art is a dialogue and I am talking with myself. My work is an endless game
of "What if?" What if I tried this color? What if I tried to make
this material do that? What would happen if I did this instead? The material
excites me; the tactile nature of fabric, thread and beads gives me pleasure.
I love color and texture. I love the feel of the needle as it pierces a quilt
sandwich, and I love the way the thread resists as I pull it through. I love
to drive the sewing machine at full tilt while Nellie McKay or The Doors or
Amy Winehouse plays on the CD player. I love the way the zigzag lines echo
those of pastel on paper; it is drawing on hyperdrive. I am madly in love
with the work, with the processes of it, from the initial choosing of the
fabric to the tying of the last knot. I wake up looking forward to the work
of the day and go to sleep dreaming of works yet to come. More ideas come
as I work, and many times one piece will lead to the next if I let it, as
I ask myself "What if?" and I answer "Why not?"
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