Before I tell you about all the wonderful Mexican women I work with, let me set the stage by telling you a little about me. When I was young, I spent many weekends making clothing from scratch with my mother,
For the last six months I have been screen printing thousands of feathers from black recycled plastic in preparation for starting a new series of black pieces. Blackbird is the first piece in this new collection and the fourth environmental
Using Ceramics to Tell the Story of Endangered Birds Drawing and research about endangered birds is the cornerstone of my environmental art practice. I created my first portfolio at an artist residency in 2016 at La Porte Peinte Centre Pour
Box of horsehair! Lucky Me! Many years ago, I had a studio at the Arts & Industry Building in Florence, Mass. There were over 70 artist studios and small businesses tucked into this old brush factory. One of my neighbors
One of my new artist friends is Ana Lopez-Montes who I met through the Art Lab virtual residency at PRPG.mx. She is also the studio manager for Archivo Gráfica, a printmaking studio that has been located in Roma, in downtown
Like many artists, I enjoy getting away from my daily life and periodically indulging myself in an artist residency. In August 2021, I spent a heavenly two weeks at Hypatia-in-the-Woods located in South Puget Sound, south of Seattle, WA. Drawing
Drawing and research are the basic building blocks of my art practice. Let me take you through the process so that you can see how the drawings and my art are completely intertwined. My work entails a lot of research.
“…sometimes, like meditating, I need to visually take a breath. After every two or three richly colored pieces, I need to make a piece in white.” I love color. Deep, saturated color that elevates your heart rate. Most of my
You’re probably thinking, isn’t your work the evidence of productivity? Well, yes and no. Work ebbs and flows. Like most abstract painting, I build up the surface of my work and sometimes tear it down until I get it right.
I have just finished my first huipil-inspired piece titled Ropa Blanca. Many of my pieces gestate for a long time and Ropa Blanca was no exception. Like in my piece Kimono, I used the huipil, a traditional women’s blouse, as
Since it was fall and a bit chilly, there were no other residents. We each had a private bedroom and also a writing or drawing studio. We settled into a rhythm of working most of the day, taking rambles through
In a recent artist interview in the Textile Curator blog, the curator asked how long a piece took to complete. There was really no way to answer but the story behind Accidentals is a good case in point.
Two years ago I pinned up about 90 sheets of my silk screened plastic sheets onto a wall in my studio. It looked like a crazy quilt. I had an idea about making an oversize artist book. It was interesting but not extraordinary.
In October 2016, I spent a month at La Porte Peinte artist residency in a small medieval village in central France. I did hours of research about endangered birds, which led to a series of 18 drawings of birds around the world whose existence is threatened by habitat destruction and other thoughtless human practices.
My Mexican Studio Assistants-
Although I have studios in Durham, NC and Chapala, Mexico, most of my production work takes place in Mexico. Due to the vast difference in pay scale, I can afford to employ a team of Mexican women to fabricate my feathers.
The favorite spice of fiber artists
Even when I worked with fiber and encaustic, I bounced back and forth between letting the wax glow unimpeded versus adding waxed linen and wire to create surface texture. Now that I am creating feathers by screen-printing on fused plastic bags I have started to feel the tidal pull towards adding texture again.
Every summer I jury a couple hundred applications for the 360 Xochi Quetzal Artist Residency Program. One note I frequently write on applications: work and statement both strong but not integrated. One day I snapped to attention because I realized that my pieces were guilty of this too.