Q.

What is your creative process?

A.

This is a huge question, and I think there are many ways to answer it! I am choosing to talk more specifically to my woven concrete series than maybe other parts of my practice.

My woven concrete series embeds handwoven lace into concrete slabs. These works are material paintings, they hang on the gallery wall and invite the viewer to experience them as an abstract painting of brightly colored line and meandering grids. Yet they ask more of their viewing in their materiality, their utilitarian history, their surface, and their texture. Materials and their cultural associations lie at the core of my work and as I work to unpack the meanings of lace and concrete, I incorporate the inherent contradictions of these materials into the concept of each work. In contemporary culture concrete symbolizes strength, structure, and stability, yet without reinforcement it cracks and crumbles, revealing its inability to adjust. Textiles, on the other hand, are soft and pliable. They also exert strength though through tensile properties exerting flexibility and movement. My work rethinks these materials at the level of association and actively promotes the dismantling of such conventions to expose the symbolic construction, fictions and ideological investments underlying them.

I begin by winding a warp - this is the process of measuring each thread to the same length for weaving. I spend time choosing colors to create complex striped patterns. I then warp the loom spending time threading each thread and putting it under tension. At the loom, I weave intuitively. I only see about a foot of the woven cloth at a time. I am constantly responding to what was woven in the foot before, adding color and texture and pattern - finding a rhythm, losing a rhythm and responding. Once the weaving is complete, I release it from the tension of the loom and see the fabric for the first time. At this point the weaving becomes a completely different experience. I drape and fold, cut and compose until I have reached a composition that I believe complements the patterns and colors of the weaving. This part is a wonderful struggle. I strain to listen to the fabric, often getting frustrated, but somehow finding a posture that seems right. I then turn on loud music and start to combine cement, sand and water to make my concrete mix. The gesture of the folds and the surface of the fabric is moved by the pouring of wet concrete on the dry textile. I never know until the piece is cured if it will be a success. It is always a surprise.

Q.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

A.

I am very much inspired by architecture and the built environment. I love walking around cities and admiring the different buildings. I often find myself mesmerized by construction sites; the colors and patterns, the movement and growth, and watching people work together. I think these experiences influence my work both formally as well as conceptually.

Q.

What influence does living in Lexington, KY have on your work?

A.

Holding a professorship at the University of Kentucky, I am embedded in a truly wonderful community of artists and academics. I have a lot of space and support to make my work. Since moving here two years ago, I have been interested in Appalachian history, especially in relationship to weaving and in particular to overshot - a weave structure that utilizes a system of supplementary ‘floats’ to create complex patterns. I have begun to incorporate these patterns and weave structures into my art works. In spring of 2019, I worked with Miriam Kienle, a contemporary art historian and curator, on a project called Material Resistance. Over about a year we had many passionate conversations around feminism and craft and from these conversations she curated an exhibition for which I created a new work. What Binds Us, was a sculptural installation using woven fabric cast into concrete walls stretching 10ft x 9ft x 7ft. The pattern threads expended off the surface of the wall and were tied together to a facing wall exerting an expression of balance and support. Each thread in this 10ft work is tied together by local artists in a private performance. The act of tying together is a gesture of connection as we attempt to unpack ideas of resistance, tension, balance, and imbalance.

Q.

What is your relationship with social media?

A.

Over the last year I have stopped using Facebook, but I totally love Instagram!

Q.

What messages or emotions do you hope to convey to your audience?

A.

In my works I challenge myself not only formally and technically but as a thought exercise. I use handwoven fabric in combination with concrete, both materials drenched in collective experience. We know and understand these materials because they surround us in our everyday. Maybe because of this familiarity they are charged with specific identities; hard / soft, strength / pliability, cold / warmth. It is through our materials we come to understand these words; to wrap our experiences in them to use them in speech to express to one another. My work is to go deep into these understandings and try to tease out how they color our world, our relationships, and our attitudes.

Making to me is very personal and I think looking at art is as well. We all come to our present moment through our specific history of experiences. We use those experiences to understand the moment. My work, I believe, lives in a realm of universal experiences because of the materials I choose. I hope to draw attention to that by representing them to the viewer in an unfamiliar way, allowing for a re-recognition whatever that means to the individual.

Q.

Who are some contemporaries or figures in art history who have influenced you?

A.

There are so many artists that inspire me! Anni Albers, Anne Wilson, Leonore Antunes, Carol Bove just to name a few.

Q.

When do you make your best work?

A.

Each part of my day I feel is best for something. I typically use the morning for reading, writing, and research and the afternoon for making work in the studio.

Q.

What do you listen to when creating?

A.

I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts while I am weaving or preparing the loom, but when I am mixing cement or building I listen to loud music.

Q.

What influence does modern culture have on your work?

A.

I have been thinking a lot about how our modern culture has been more and more dedicated to the idea of practice. From studio practice to a physician’s practice or a meditation practice. I feel very connected to approaching life and art making in this way. It is about endurance, the process and all that goes into it over the finished object or finished work.

Q.

What makes you laugh?

A.

My sisters and my nieces.

Q.

What makes you nervous?

A.

Global warming, racism, sexism, xenophobia, all forms of hatred.

Q.

What makes you excited about the future?

A.

I believe we are at a really important time in the history of our country and the world. I also believe although it feels slow and often backwards we have some really strong and powerful momentum forward. We all need to focus and come together now more than ever.