Artist Statement

Uniting natural and manufactured materials in creative ritual, I transform what I have on hand into what I need to exist. What I have are materials gathered from the land, such as natural dye plants and rocks of pigment, and an abundance of human-made resources of domestic textiles and paper. What I need is support and clarity to engage in community building for climate justice, shifting culture towards collective flourishing. As a textile artist, I repurpose fabric, yarn, and thread that encode personal history of use and inheritance. Overdyed with garden dye plants, the textiles become renewed and can be pieced back together to create dreams and intentions for the future. I also combine handmade watercolor paint, ink, and charcoal with repurposed paper and textiles to visualize where we go from here, as both care-givers and change-makers. The foundation of my work is tending a permaculture food forest garden that provides living plant color, space for natural dyeing with solar energy, and a physical connection to the shifting rhythms of our changing climate.