Artist Statement
The making of woven cloth is at the core of my artistic practice. For the last ten years I have been exploring both the industrial Jacquard loom and the traditional hand loom in parallel research. My investigation into weaving and textiles is inspired by the qualities inherent in their structure, production, design, craft, and history.
In my earliest large-scale body of work, I used my own handwoven cloth as a canvas on which I embroidered symbols and patterns. This connective process activated both the cloth and the embroidery to create meaning as well as the potential for sculptural surfaces. In this way, the hand loom is a tool I use to create textiles that can be altered, manipulated, and ultimately combined with industrial Jacquard textiles.
Most artists when approaching the Jacquard loom use the loom as a vehicle for pictorial or portrait-based results. My approach is to use the industrial Jacquard loom for its ability to weave multilayered textiles called double cloth and quadruple cloth. These two-and four-layered textiles allow for structure, materials, and threads to emerge and disappear within and out of the base cloths. The layers interact. They emerge sometimes as floats or appendages. They can be flat, puckered, cut, and manipulated as needed. As a result, these surfaces bring the artist’s hand back onto the surface of these industrial textiles.
I find inspiration in hunting and gathering a variety industrial and machine-made materials I can later integrate into my work. The ubiquitous nature of the materials I use are interesting to me because they usually defy desire and beauty: vinyl-coated recycled polyester, industrial dyed goose feathers sewn onto a polyester ribbon, plastic palettes, fique, retro-reflective safety tape,
phosphorescent and holographic tape
.Expanding on the concept of layers and their metaphors, my research leads me to histories and places both real and imagined. Layers both conceptual and physical start to align after weaving many explorations and samples and bringing into these textiles industrial materials that have been repurposed and reimagined.
In my earliest large-scale body of work, I used my own handwoven cloth as a canvas on which I embroidered symbols and patterns. This connective process activated both the cloth and the embroidery to create meaning as well as the potential for sculptural surfaces. In this way, the hand loom is a tool I use to create textiles that can be altered, manipulated, and ultimately combined with industrial Jacquard textiles.
Most artists when approaching the Jacquard loom use the loom as a vehicle for pictorial or portrait-based results. My approach is to use the industrial Jacquard loom for its ability to weave multilayered textiles called double cloth and quadruple cloth. These two-and four-layered textiles allow for structure, materials, and threads to emerge and disappear within and out of the base cloths. The layers interact. They emerge sometimes as floats or appendages. They can be flat, puckered, cut, and manipulated as needed. As a result, these surfaces bring the artist’s hand back onto the surface of these industrial textiles.
I find inspiration in hunting and gathering a variety industrial and machine-made materials I can later integrate into my work. The ubiquitous nature of the materials I use are interesting to me because they usually defy desire and beauty: vinyl-coated recycled polyester, industrial dyed goose feathers sewn onto a polyester ribbon, plastic palettes, fique, retro-reflective safety tape,
phosphorescent and holographic tape
.Expanding on the concept of layers and their metaphors, my research leads me to histories and places both real and imagined. Layers both conceptual and physical start to align after weaving many explorations and samples and bringing into these textiles industrial materials that have been repurposed and reimagined.