Greetings from the fantastic world of fiber art!
Growing up, I adored finding items around the house to repurpose. I melted crayons to create rainbows. I sewed scraps of fabric together to make blankets. I poured nail polish onto canvas to investigate color and texture.
After graduating from Denison university with a B.A. in psychology and queer studies, I traveled to Northeastern Brazil to teach English and culture classes for two years as a Fulbright scholar. My students requested creative activities so I began collecting water bottles, toilet paper rolls, dried beans, magazines, etc to repurpose for music, games, and art.
When I returned to the US, I moved to the Finger Lakes and learned how to hand-dye and hand-spin yarn. Watching wool from sheep transform into usable yarn was an enchanting process! Inspired by my grandmothers who knit clothing for their families, I used my handmade art yarn to knit dresses and sweaters. These garments sat unworn in my closet for years, and my desire to repurpose kicked in. I unraveled hundreds of hours of work, cut up the yarn, and individually glued pieces of handmade fiber to canvas. Just like that, fiber painting was born!
For the past four years, I have explored the medium of hand-dyed and hand-spun art yarn on canvas and have worked to bring legitimacy to an ancient craft that has been traditionally dismissed from contemporary gallery settings. Check out my website to see where my unique fiber paintings will be displayed next!