ABOUT THE ARTIST
In my family, creativity was a value, and I was born an artist at heart. Though my own creativity was inhibited by the need for precision, I excelled where it was required. I created in mediums that I could carefully control the outcome. I learned to sew at a very young age and became a lover of all things textile. I did wonderful things with fiber and paper and writing. But I was intimidated by art, which I viewed as something imprecise and uncontrollable. Much later, after leaving a career in Silicon Valley for a small town in southern Oregon, I made a timid but resolute entry into the world of art. I returned to school and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in printmaking and oil painting, finally claiming the title artist.
Through printmaking, I learned to appreciate the tension that forms between the limitless creativity, the need for precision, and the unpredictability of the medium. Through painting, I finally learned to color outside the lines, letting the act of applying paint to canvas be my only guide.
From painting and printmaking, I returned to my love of textiles after discovering the intriguing world of antique tobacco silks. Working with these little slips of printed fabric, I found an ideal combination of free-form creativity and precision in execution. Turning them into quilted works of art is both rewarding and magical.
I am fortunate in my life to have discovered the power of artwork to transform abstract notions of my own identity into a recognizable reality. Through making art, I am able to evoke a half-remembered feeling or impression and represent it as something wholly unique, thereby transforming an artifact of memory into a vital part of the person I am today.