Artist Statement

As an artist, I want to explore and push the boundaries of traditional sewing techniques. I intend to showcase the act of sewing outside its historically domestic context and allow the sewing machine to be seen as the versatile and powerful tool it can be.

In creating my work, I use a sewing machine with the feed dogs disengaged. This is free motion stitching, where the needle acts as my drawing tool and the thread is my way of mark making. There is nothing digitized or computerized about my stitching - I am in complete control.

Oftentimes I dissolve the base fabric I stitch upon, leaving nothing but the interconnected stitches of thread. This creates a work that seems as though it’s teetering in a state between stability and unraveling into the abyss.

I want my work to tell a story of our simultaneous magnificence and insignificance - the individual lockstitches symbolizing the microcosms that we all are within this vast universe. My creative process speaks to finding these dichotomies within us and around us and allowing them to just be - harmonious and inseparable.

Figures are represented in much of my work as a way of questioning and discovering the fragments that make up who we are. I use my art practice to reflect on how everything can be a universe in and of itself while also finding its relative spot in a larger world. How big of a force are we in the universal link?

One of my greatest strengths is my curiosity. While sewing is my primary practice, I do not limit myself to this. I am a lifelong learner and find inspiration in experimenting and trying new things. In many ways, the process is where the story lies in my work. I use almost exclusively secondhand materials in my artwork because they’ve already lived a life I may never know about. I want viewers of my finished pieces to search for the stories and to look at the individual stitches/marks/brush strokes that make up the whole work - relating that back to the fragments of their beings and reflecting on this balancing act of life.