Artist Statement
I believe I have been a fiber artist since before I can remember. As a young child, I would frequently pluck the fur from my beloved stuffed animals just to relish the sensation of twisting the strands between my fingers. As I got older, my great aunt taught me to quilt – a traditional skill that retained an important place in southern culture even before the Bicentennial inspired the national quilt revival in the 1970’s.
I began my first quilt in 4th grade, and I did not finish it until college. Along the way, I learned dressmaking, knitting and weaving. I made the majority of my clothes in high school and college – many of them based on patterns and styles from other times in history and other cultures. When I left school for the working world, I gravitated back to quilting as a means of self-expression. Since then, it has remained the dominant medium of my art.
Though I was thoroughly trained as a traditional quilter, I rapidly moved beyond those parameters. My work does not have a distinctive style, because each quilt presents new challenges that force me to learn or adapt different techniques. Some pieces are highly improvisational, changing radically from conception to execution. Others adhere to more traditional rules. Some are completely hand made; others combine machine and hand techniques. Over the years, I have incorporated calligraphy, painting, beading and natural elements in my work to provide additional texture, dimension and depth.
As a student at Union and at the General Theological Seminary, I pondered the theological significance of my work, and began to give voice to why it has been so important to me over my lifetime. My work speaks to that ongoing internal discussion.
I am a dancer, a dreamer, an artist, a drummer. I am also the mother of two wonderful teenage children and the partner of a deeply caring man. I was raised in New Orleans, but I moved to the East Coast to attend high school and college. In my 20’s, I worked in the garment center for Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. I was a stay at home mom for 7 years, before becoming a Social Studies Workshop teacher at Fieldston Lower School in the Bronx, NY. I began my career at Union in September of 2007. Since then, I have worked as a hospital chaplain at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY and as a protest chaplain in Zuccotti Park. I preached and served both on the vestry and as a Eucharistic minister at Christ Church Riverdale in the Bronx, NY (an Episcopal Church.) After my ordination, I served as curate for 2 years at the Church of St Luke in the Fields. I am now a priest associate at the Church of the Ascension in Manhattan.