My current body of work, consisting of hand-worked embellished textile assemblages, hinge on intersections and the inherent tension, disorientation, and anxiety arising from conceptual and material collisions.  The pieces investigate personal and cultural issues that are intentionally difficult: I believe good art comes from friction, micro or macro. The work glistening with embellishment and embedded with treasures beckons the viewer while presenting proposals that possibly repel. 

Working with a fine craft medium within a fine art structuring of concept and presentation is itself a subversive act, meant to posit a conflict of aesthetic assumptions.  As I incorporate personal narrative or popular culture iconography, the medium of embellished textiles enables the investigation of polemic or emotionally murky subject matter with a material that can be a decorative foil for the content. My method of beading and quilting creates a dimensional surface that is highly tactile and luscious. I enjoy decadent surfaces that are encrusted with decoration, partially out of frustration with the flatness increasingly dominant in contemporary life. Thoroughly complex and work-intensive creative processes attract me; the art in the work happens during the creative process, and the process becomes a type of prayerful labor, of meditating and working through the issues presented in the piece.

Haitian prayer banners, circus side-show posters, Gothic reliquaries, vernacular objects, personal and/or devotional altars, Byzantine paintings and mosaics, local television news media ~ all disparate visual inspirations that share the common goal of ritualizing their subjects.  The creation of my hand-worked textile pieces is itself a ritualizing action; the laborious process manifests into an artifact of mindful work.  By featuring caustic and satirical images in luscious and decadent surfaces, my aim is to create work that is simultaneously seductive and emotionally disconcerting to perhaps bring joy and light into troubling arenas with beauty and humor.