Cloth, especially its transformative properties, is the primary element in my work. The work I create comes from my desire to tell stories and is driven by both process and concept. The repetition of stitching, piercing, and mark-making through the surfaces of felted cloth connect me to my art narrative both physically and spiritually. My images come from a desire to communicate emotion through a visceral language of color and texture. I also work in paper, mixed media and in 2015 created a new series of felted wool masks. Today, my works can be found in the permanent collections of the M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, the Oakland Museum of California, the Museum of Art and Design, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Tassenmuseum Hendrikje, Amsterdam. I teach nationally and internationally and have lived and worked in Berkeley since 1980.
I was an art student at the Pratt Institute during the counter culture hippie era of the late 1960s and 70s. At that time I became interested in the textile traditions of “women’s work,” and began using crochet in most of my class assignments. Later, I began making garments and made connections to many women artists nationwide who also made hand made clothing. None of us really knew then that we were creating what is defined today as the American studio craft ArtWear Movement. In 1991, a group of us Bay Area women friends established Group 9. We were all bound by the common interest to make work for the body, or about the body. Lasting over a decade, our Group 9 camaraderie provided ideas, support and discussions for furthering our careers as women.
Rain Coat 2006 56"x59". Wool cloth, felted, pierced, dyed, stitched.
Markers 2008 34"x3/8"x63" Wool cloth, felted, pierced, dyed, stitched.
Layers of Meaning 2007 2@ 87"x1/2"x36" each. Wool cloth, felted, dyed, stitched.
Goat Mask: Guardian to the Afterlife 2015 Wool felt, goat hair, silk, wire.
Wolf Mask:Guardian to the Afterlife 2015 Wool felt, cloth.