Textiles can be prose, poetry and even painting. The idea of re-imagining textiles in paint grew from years of interest in handmade textiles as an art form and as an essential source of connection and community in traditional societies. Borrowing freely from the complex forms and meanings of this rich tradition has become for me a way to own it, celebrate it and search for meaning in my own work.

Matisse called his textile collection his “working library”. For me textiles offer a lexicon of structures and associations that provide the language for my work. Fold, pleat, pattern and patch: these forms and actions find new applications in the two dimensional geometry of the painted surface.

Many of the paintings use the form of clothing, baby carriers, bed and wall coverings--textiles that touch, reveal, conceal, warm or enhance the human body and its dwelling places. Through the layering of pattern and color they embrace complexity while seeking harmony and wholeness. They suggest maps or palimpsests that allude to the passage of time and the synergistic ordering of the natural and human world.
 

May 2010