I think I have always been drawn to fabrics, textiles, and handicrafts. Just seeing them in museums, in books, etc. makes me want to stop everything and know all there is to know about the piece I’m looking at. My fingers itch to be touching yarn, wool, fabrics almost all the time.

In 2005, I tried weaving for the first time at the Tsunami Craft Shop in Bang Niang, Thailand, where a Japanese weaving cooperative brought simple looms for Thai women on the Andaman Coast to learn how to weave. It was thrilling to operate the loom. In 2009, after using one in the gallery of the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, I bought a laser cut backstrap loom from Travis Meinolf, Action Weaver, and immediately began my first project.

In 2014 I began learning how to create string heddles, warp up—or sley—a loom, and teach others how to weave on a floor loom, and for the next year I had one of “The Possible” looms in my living room. I was gifted a tapestry loom. In 2016 I was given a Norwood Loom, a four shaft floor loom, which I have yet to start a project on.

See my posts Foraging for Color and Shibori using a natural dye to learn about my experimentation with natural dyes.

In 2011, I was asked to create a piece of art, a banner, for my friends’ wedding. Sean and Claire had asked four artists to each create something to adorn the site of the wedding, and also imagine the pieces living on flanking Sean’s performances or beautifying their home. We were working with a folk art theme, and being not much of a painter, I created a piece from scrap fabric that felt to me to approximate a wedding quilt. I had the chance to share ideas with and work with references to the work that Paz de la Calzada was creating as well, which was a treat, since her work is smart and gorgeous at the same time.