AGAINST FORGETTING WHAT HAS BEEN LOST

The forest where I live and work has been a huge inspiration and influence on my artwork.  I walk in the woods as often as possible, observing, listening, and photographing.

For years my artwork was based in paper and stitching. I created 2-D quilted paper artwork and hand-bound books. In 2018, I developed a rare autoimmune disease called Scleroderma that makes it very difficult for me to create large-scale machine stitched artworks and impossible to hand bind books. It also makes it difficult for me to hike in the woods I love so much.

I was forced to experiment in the studio, to learn what was possible within my limitations. I discovered that a return to hand quilting and the embroidery I did as a child, plus machine quilting on a smaller scale, all made continued work possible. I began to gel print on papers and fabrics and learned to eco-dye fabrics and papers using leaves from my woods. Out of these discoveries, new forms of artwork emerged, exploring a real of the place where I live and work, my new relationship to it, and my sense of loss and the experience of relearning and rediscovery.

Against Forgetting What Has Been Lost is a direct result of this rediscovery. Made from fabrics eco-dyed using leaves from the woods where I used to walk daily, the piece combines hand quilting with hand embroidery in 3 dimensions to embody my memories of the mushrooms, moss and lichen that I loved to find on those walks. It is a souvenir of my life before Scleroderma, a reminder to myself that what has been lost to me is still alive in the world, and a love song to the forest floor.