Descriptions of Work Samples
 
A
Cast Your Net, It Shall Bring Tales

2023, 67" x 87"

The acts of piecing, embellishing, and hand-quilting are for me practical tasks that put my physical body in motion, clearing space for metaphysical discovery. The fisherman casts his nets so as to set in motion the task of collecting fish, and in the space between casting and hauling there is quiet and time for looking to the stars; dreaming and pondering. To build this quilt, I sorted and organized thirteen years worth of scraps (86 unique textiles); assembled intuitively and methodically. Only when the top was sewn and partially filled with unplanned, embroidered forms did a narrative emerge, helped along by conversations with my husband, my truest partner in metaphysical discovery. The epic tale of Odysseus and Penelope was a touchstone during our long courtship, and thus there is a personal mythology embroidered here, but I urge the viewer: cast your net, it shall bring tales.
 
B

Babukeshi Tapestry

2021, 35” x 55”

Babukeshi is a project born from my work with UAB Arts in Medicine. From 2014 to 2020, I taught embroidery to patients, family caregivers, and staff across UAB hospital. I witnessed the healing power of the arts first-hand. After a trip to Oaxaca in 2016, I started researching and conceiving a project that would honor ancestors, both real and chosen. Babukeshi is a word I coined to mean “ancestor doll”. The Babukeshi wall hanging is a collage of my illustrations after visiting Oaxaca and Tanzania. After reading a letter that my grandmother wrote to her aunt, I turned to my own ancestors for inspiration. The Hannie installation is the result of on-going research into what it means to commune with one’s ancestors. I never knew Anne Elizabeth Kling Howard (maternal grandmother who I call Hannie) but she was an avid sewist and I feel like my own obsession with fiber arts is a thread that binds us. My mother helped with parts of the Hannie Babukeshi, and that has been an important part of this work for me.

 
C

Kaleidoscope Series

Various dates & sizes

When I was a kid, a kaleidoscope could entrance me for hours. The combination of overwrought colors and sacred geometry, fluidly transitioning from one satisfying array to infinitely more pleasing symmetries was just what my brain needed to release its store of dopamine. And if honest-to-god plastic "gems" were part of the random collection of tidbits at the kaleidoscope's base, all the better. I've learned recently from the inestimable Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints on YouTube), that I’m in the “Opulence” camp; hence my approach to quilting. This whole-cloth, hand-quilted piece is a digital print on cotton sateen. I took a watercolor sketch and created kaleidoscopic snapshots with an app on my phone, next manipulating the colors in Photoshop. The digital stuff is for the fast part of my brain and the hand-quilting thankfully slows my brain down again. And best of all, the result takes me back to dreamily twisting a kaleidoscope.
 
D
Chris' Quilt
2021, approx 4.5' x 5'

This piece was improvisationally pieced and hand-quilted 
 
E
The March Quilts Project - Year 6 - Lynch Quilts Project (Response)

2020, 47" x 77"

In early 2020, prior to the world shutting down, LaShawnda Crowe Storm came to Birmingham as part of a residency and exhibition of four pieces from her project, The Lynch Quilts. Birmingham residents were offered a chance to participate in two workshops with Ms. Storm. During these sessions, participants discussed the arc of racial violence in America and sat together sewing with Ms. Storm. Then a global pandemic isolated us all from our communities and the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others, forced a reckoning that is still unfinished. In the wake of all of this upheaval, The March Quilts project became a response to Ms. Crowe's work, open only to participants of her workshops in Birmingham. 12 individuals created blocks to illustrate their experience with The Lynch Quilts project and I arranged and pieced the blocks and hand-quilted and bound the resulting piece. I also created a block for the project (third row, third from left).
 
F

The March Quilts Project - Year 1 - Members' Quilt

2015, 53" x 65.6"

The March Quilts is an annual project that sheds light on themes of civil and human rights through sewing sessions where participants can express themselves through needle and thread. During the first year of the project, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches, acknowledging how far we've come as a society - and how far yet we have to go. 461 blocks were collected at sewing sessions held in churches, hospitals, schools, community centers, libraries and more. Three community quilts were made by members of Bib & Tucker Sew-Op, a nonprofit I co-founded in 2014. Bib & Tucker members wanted to create their own quilt as a companion to the community quilts. 16 individuals created blocks to illustrate their feelings about the 50th anniversary and I arranged and pieced the blocks and hand-quilted and bound the resulting piece. I incorporated small squares of the background fabric used in the community quilts, meant to evoke the colors of the environment the marchers were steeped in for five days between Selma and Montgomery. In this case, the smaller blocks are meant to evoke stained glass in this quilt because churches were the foundation of the movement. I also created a block for the project (top row, third from left).

 
G & H
Mother and Child

2015, 4 ft x 3 ft

Nurse and Patient

2015, 4 ft x 3 ft

As an artist in residence for UAB Arts in Medicine, I designed, facilitated, and sewed these wallhangings which continue to greet visitors of UAB’s Women and Infant Center lobby. I processed donated scrubs into circles that were then sewn into fabric hexagons by patients, family caregivers, and medical staff. I then hand-sewed the hexagons together and added the black piping to create the imagery of a mother with her child and a nurse with her patient.
 
I & J

re:TOUCHED Tapestries

Work-in-progress, various sizes

re:TOUCHED is about working to replace raw materials with items saved from the landfill in my artistic practice. I hope to find new ways of viewing cast offs that will encourage viewers to consider our throw away society. My exploration is nascent; shown here are scraps from other projects that have been pieced, dyed, and embellished. I have just begun to incorporate scraps of trash (manipulated aluminum cans)