I started exploring fiber arts at an early age from my mother who taught me to embroider, knit and sew, and from there I adventured into knotting, weaving, quilting and mixed-media. My first quilts were made in the late nineties, but I decided to really pursue it after I finished a series of brightly colored, geometrically designed quilts in 2001. These quilts had no real meaning beyond beauty, which was fine for me at the time. It wasn’t until I attended the Oregon College of Art & Craft that I started thinking critically about the deeper meaning of art and its process.

As a citizen I am interested in the ever changing complexities of identity and challenges of post-modern cross-culturalism. What makes me American? What is my culture? Beyond capitalism and consumerism, democracy and immigration and slave history, what defines us? When is social hybridity and integration progressive or when is it contentious? WEB DuBois states in his essay ‘The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto’ that “..the race problem in which I was interested in cut across lines of color and physique and belief and status and was a matter of cultural patterns, perverted teaching and human hate and prejudice, which reached all sorts of people and caused endless evil to all men.” Making a unified cultural history is not easy, given the continued self-segregation we employ and general racial and cultural ignorance which keeps us from crossing the line. One group of citizens has always commented on, pushed and crossed these boundaries: artists.

As an art form quilting in particular and fiber arts in general provides a process to work through some of these questions. After a time spent exploring mixed-media sculptural work, I have returned to quilting. It is a true American art form, giving me a sense of connection to the culture in which I was raised. I also enjoy the form of this utilitartian object, the blanket, which gives us emotional as well as physical comfort. Everyone is familiar with the blanket which knows no boundaries and covers every line.

As an artist it is my aim to develop a visual language to examine various social and spiritual issues and questions relating to identity construction and cultural amalgamation. I seek to create works of art that will push these issues and cross the fine art vs. craft divide. One Fibers Artist who does just this is Faith Ringgold- through her artwork she not only seeks to blur the line between fine art and craft, but also empower people through creating cross-cultural understanding. It is evident also with the recent recognition of Gee’s Bend quilts at the Whitney that quilt as fine art object has expanded beyond craft to engage the same formal and content theme as painting. Building upon this tradition I plan to create a body of work that reflects on the ancient wisdom of the past, contemporary themes of the present and visual language for the future.