FIBER

Ruby 

Red Human Hair Embroidery on Great-Great Grandmother’s Table Cloth, 14 3/4 x 14 1/2” 

For Christmas last year, my grandmother gave me a set of napkins that she had cut from her grandmother’s table cloth. This was the “fancy” table cloth. One where, as a child she had run past daringly on her way through the formal dining room while playing with her cousins. The table cloth you could only eat on if the preacher came for Sunday lunch or there was a very special occasion. What a  joy it was to sit with my grandmother and hear her favorite memories of her grandmother — someone who had loved her deeply when unimaginable loss and heartache came into her life at a young age. Ruby was my great-great grandmother’s name. There’s a lineage of women that came before me who were fierce. They were and are makers, gardeners, deep feelers, fighters. It feels like a privilege to, in a way, be gathered around this table cloth with them. 

Underlying

Monofilament Embroidery on My Grandparent’s Box Spring (Used 1966-2020) Depicted in multiple lighting scenarios including manufactured light and natural light at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm.

Hospital Property

Human hair on used pillowcase.

During my time in Houston, many people who are receiving treatments from the nearby Cancer Research hospital, MD Anderson, have wandered into my studio. Several of these encounters have been ones in which people have shared stories of heartache, or how they just “needed a good day and came to see some art, without the kids, for the first time in a long time,” or how they packed up everything just to get treatment from this place. They’re moments of deep sorrow, half-smiles, and gratefulness for those caring for them. A lot of these conversations started when they noticed my previous hair embroideries. Many have had to say goodbye to their hair.

I’m grateful for the people who have been willing to share with me. Though nothing I do or say can make these things right, or make up for what is lost, it’s my hope that through materials and a willingness to listen that people will continue to share stories and feel heard even in the hardest moments.

In 2018, someone gave me this stained pillowcase, stamped “Hospital Property,” and now it is embroidered with a grid of hair. As a whole it creates a landscape, undulating. From right to left it fades to an outline— a reminder of what once was. From left to right it grows— moving from an outline, one of many, to the hope of a new growth.

Parasite

Bio Degradable Packing Peanuts in Pantyhose (In Progress, Approximately 36x46")

Hirsute

14” Diameter, Hand embroidered human hair on pillowcase. 

Inspired by Victorian era hair wreaths and the desire/repulsion narrative, this piece asks the viewer to engage with a figure that is anything but expected. 118 hours and countless careful stitches. --- Inspired by the work of contemporary artists such as Lynne Yamamoto and vernacular practices such as Victorian era hair wreaths, this embroidery asks the viewer to consider their delightful and the disgusting experiences with hair. Though a seemingly mundane medium, this piece is unexpected and bodily once it is realized that hair, rather than thread, has been used. 

Velvet Dress Deconstructed

Approximately 12x20" 

This piece, composed of luxurious velvet invites the viewer to touch it, and yet its strangely intestinal forms discourage such an action.

Tiger Stripes

Human Hair on Curtain

Stretched like a strange skin, semi-transparent pink fabric is tied to a picture frame with human hair. Within the confines of the pink skin are two figures that are seemingly the same person, working tirelessly to cut away and re-assemble their body. The transparency of this piece is uncomfortable, the curtain belongs in a house, and yet see-through curtains are helpful only as decoration, thus it can never again serve its original purpose. It is easy as humans to obsess over the way we present ourselves— we try new fashions, we work out, we mourn the things we do not appreciate, and this practice seemingly lasts our entire lives. It is curious to note, too, that women are often criticized for their bodies, asked to reinvent and deconstruct themselves, and often seen as useful only in the decorative sense.

Number Three

Silk, Thread, Canvas, Stripe, and Athletic shirt, 5.25x3.5" each, October 2017.

I don’t pretend to know the suffering of others, but I do think that it is important to mourn alongside those who are mourning. I believe that life can be breathed back into those who are gone when we choose to remember. Every month since August 2014, I have written a letter to. Mrs. Robin with a memory. This memory is sometimes disjointed and often I don’t get all of the details right, but the act of remembering laughter and things that were seemingly unimportant can remind those who are hurting that though their loved one is gone, they are not forgotten.

Sleep Patterns

Embroidery on Used Starched Pillowcases, 27x19” each, November 2017

Vein-like, embroidered creases create imprints on three used pillowcases. Each piece becomes a landscape left behind by a left side, a back, and a right side sleeper.

For Cassatt

Block Printing on Linen, 14x25”, September 2017,

 This set of hand carved block prints pay homage to Mary Cassatt in their jewel tones and shapes reminiscent of her paintings "Maternal Caress," "The Letter," "The Fitting," and "Woman Bathing (La Toilette)."