“New Horizons”

fiber art

I am enamored by the ways color and texture affect us: How two colors can come together to form a clean, clear line with some sort of hypnotic buzz we can’t quite focus on. The way we associate certain colors or patterns with ground or sea or sky or emotion or other personal meaning. The way we see images when we stare at the clouds.

I live in the metaphor and love the constructs we make to help organize and explain the world. For this work, I examine the horizon. A man-made construct, like the line. We imbue this construct with meaning. The sun sets or rises on the horizon, or the earth and sky divide the horizon. We expect good things on the horizon. Horizons are where we look as we move forward  or where we look over our shoulder as we move on.

I create my own fabrics for my work. This is an intensive process that includes discharging (removing color) and dyeing (adding color). I use direct application as well as traditional techniques like Shibori, the grandfather of tie-dyeing. Wrapping fabric around a pole and compressing or stitching layers of fabric and shirring together create design, texture and pattern. The results are then over-dyed to create depth and character. Individual works are stitched together, then finished to a final result.

These works are improvisations. When I start, I am only interested in color and texture-no other plan is had. It is only through each piece being worked that its meaning comes to the surface. In this way, the work takes on its own organic, dynamic process. My task is to stay out of the way just enough to let that happen.