Artist’s Statement 

Crumpled petals, fallen leaves, twigs, seed cases, and other plant “debris” that I glean from the ragged edges of Portland’s urban environment are the raw materials for my textile, fiber, and paper-based work. Gathering is both a practical and conceptual act for me: a way of paying close attention to time and place, and to what changes and what persists.

Foraging for dye materials is central to my work, and my approach is deliberately hyperlocal. I often use plant material found mere steps from my home. Most of the plants I gather are commonplace in Portland neighborhoods but not traditionally used as sources of dye. Yet these familiar plants contain a complex and thrilling range of colors hidden within them—a kind of botanical signature.

Through experimentation, I have developed novel methods for extracting color from plants. Unlike many natural dyers, I seldom use heat. Instead, I immerse my gleanings in cold rainwater or seawater, permitting pigments to release gradually over weeks or months. Dye colors shift and evolve over time, allowing me to significantly expand the range of hues that can be extracted from any given plant. This slow process yields dyes that are surprising, nuanced, and remarkably colorfast.

Reclaimed vintage silk plays a crucial role in my textile work. In my Hyperlocal Color series, I apply my foraged dyes to the white silk linings of discarded vintage Japanese kimonos. Although the linings functioned as an undergarment and were thus never meant to be on display, they are of great beauty and quality, with a wide assortment of textures and sheens. Much like the latent pigments in plants that require time to reveal themselves, the status of these linings as unseen garments appeals to my desire to call attention to concealed beauty.

While I am primarily a textile artist, papermaking has become a natural extension of my practice, allowing me to work with foraged plants as structural materials in their own right. In the series Moon Pennies, I use papermaking processes to coax the delicate, translucent seed cases of Lunaria annua (commonly known as money plant or honesty) into vessels with unexpected form and heft. My series Curvature further explores the challenge of working with seemingly ephemeral materials. Using fallen autumn leaves, I investigate how papermaking and sculptural processes can arrest decay. Subjecting flexible, fragile leaves to these processes enables me to transform them into relatively rigid basins and half-shells. The physical properties of the leaves have been fundamentally altered, but the veining, markings, and other traces of their original form are preserved.

Ultimately, my work invites viewers to notice and reconsider the value of what is commonly overlooked. Materials deemed unremarkable often hold deep potential for beauty, transformation, and meaning.