My art is quite possibly the only spontaneous thing I do.
I don’t really pre plan as a rule. When I try to plan out work in advance I never seem to actually create the piece. As a result I do a sort of stream of consciousness embroidery. More frequently I will start a piece then make sketches of it in order to find out how it should progress or be finished. I’m not good at visualizing a final piece. I need to work it out by playing with the materials.
My best work/ideas seem to come from working on road trips or while sailing. Before hitting the road I willmake a bag of assorted objects ( washers, straws, found objects etc) - grab some floss, yarn and fabric I think I might like to use for a second bag. Put them in my embroidery back pack then see what I can make of it.
As a graduate of Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, I concentrated on pottery early in my career. In recent years, I have explored combining traditional art forms with found objects or by usingnon-art materials in my work. I use embroidery to mesh abstract surface designs with forms derived from avariety of sources ranging from cast-off automobile parts to beads and mirrors. I have exhibited works in Michigan and Missouri ranging from hand-built clay items to digital pieces that are a combination of images and actual computer parts. Having never met a medium or technique that I didn’t like my goal is to combine them all using fabric as a base medium.
