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Where are you from and how does that affect your work?
I was born in Lumberton but grew up in the community of Greensboro, NC not far from here. I would like to think that my southern upbringing comes through in my practice with strong ties of family and community. As a young budding artist I was fiercely supported by my family and friends.
I would say my artistic voice has been built from layers of experience and places : from a remote island in Maine, some backroads of Georgia, a desert in Washington State, and from the many thunderstorms of North Carolina.
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Where did you start as an artist?
My mother actually jokes that I came out of her womb creating. As a child, I would lock myself in my room and come out with pages of drawings. In Kindergarten my teachers let me stay up during nap time and featured my art at the end of the year. Through the support of teachers and family I was given the time and space to create work and at the age of 12 was doing realistic portraiture . I had my first exhibition at the age of 18 and that's all she wrote. Since then, I have had at least one exhibition a year since 1997.
There was never a conscious beginning.
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Where do you currently live and work?
I currently live in Raleigh, NC and have a studio at Artspace, Studio 110. Come and see me!
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What is your artistic process from start to finish?
My process involves small acts that batched create larger works - Sketch, paint, saw, sand, puzzle, balance, and sew. Repeat
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Do you plan out your works before or let them take shape during your process?
With my sketchbook, as mentioned before I am always on the lookout for shapes but when I get to work on the wood it is an amalgamation of where the start of a sketch happens and where the paint on the wood takes it. Angles can change, size can vary. I don’t question the shapes that appear, I lean into a certain trust with the material. If I am working on installing in a specific space, I plan backwards, what is the space, how may pieces will I need, what are the sizes, what is the message, what is the pattern of traffic, what comes first, what do pieces do you leave with in your mind.
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Tell me about your medium of choice. Is there a specific environment or material that's integral to your work?
A college professor of mine Greg Carter asked me if when I am making the work, does the idea come first, or does the material. And that always stuck with me. It allowed me the freedom to explore work the way that it is natural for me to explore work. I was trained at a very young age in perspective and realism by a wonderful woman and teacher Janet Dingeldein and so once I got to college I was ready to express ideas and not just material. Throughout the years, my work has always started with the idea with the medium following. The material in this body of work Woven Strangers is very specific to the message. Currently, I use plywood for its rigidity, lightness, and for woods inherent strength and warmth. This is known as composite wood and I think it lends itself quite nicely to the meaning because by definition it includse a range of different derivative wood products all of which are created by binding the strands, fibres or boards of wood together.
In my current work, I think the trinity of material: wood and its process, waxed thread, and color is integral to my work. Its my signature.
Paint - representative of breath, water, erosion, personality, obstacles, and time
Wood - as representative of strength, rigidity, and weight
Waxed thread - as binding, as movement, as play, as fragility
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Let’s talk color - how do you decide your color choices?
Color ebbs and flows for me. For a time, I was combining contrasting colors, colors that allowed for a bit of chaos and spontaneity. But now I find myself leaning into grouping of color. For my last exhibition I made 30 pieces, in this grouping there were 6 groups of 5 images. Each grouping had a thematic color that I felt investigated the personality of one person who has donated life, and each of the 5 images were meant to represent the life donated- a heart, lung, eye, liver, and so on.
So I can gather color choices from lots of places. Often it will speak to me in the moment or from a mood.
For this particular collection I wanted the wood to come from one piece, the paintings to all be in harmony with each other.
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Let’s talk about surface texture - how do you manipulate the surface?
I like to erase the trace of my hand so marks are made by soaking, staining, scraping, spraying, and sanding.
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Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration everywhere. I carry my sketchbook with me and I find inspiration in outer and inner structures, in foundations, in geology, in the positive and negative space I see, in imagined minimal inner landscapes of our bodies. I like to look for balanced imagery and think about our inner landscape and how it is our foundation. Most shapes you see are organs set in minimal shapes. The message and meaning behind my work is about the double lung transplant I received three years ago and I am inspired everyday by people who continue to fight the good fight waiting for transplant. These works honor those who have chosen to donate life including my donor.
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What motivates you to create?
It's not a matter of motivation necessarily but innate inner drive that I cannot turn off. I come by it naturally. Artwork is my voice, and so it is the articulation of my life.
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How does your personal narrative play a role in your art making?
If you would look at my work over the years, narrative is at the center of my work. When my children were in the womb, I created a series called Fruits of our Labor and made realistic watercolors of bouquets, fruits, and vegetables all in thinking of growth and bounty. I did a lot of memory and grief pieces in unforgiving charcoal and in black pen when I was dealing with the loss of my brother. The narrative has always come first, and the material follows. I have found that artwork for me acts as Object as Vessel, a place to carry things that are too bug to carry on our own.
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How does being a mother impact your art process?
When my twins were born, I physically felt myself divide into three people. I wasn’t just aware of self anymore, I became hyper-aware of two other beings and their everyday needs and operations. In a way I was born anew, my time wasn’t all my own anymore. Becoming a mother has helped to inform my joy and curiosity and has allowed a window of play and nonjudgement into my practice that wasn’t there before. It has also forced me to hyper-manage my time, given me the ability to pour myself into these vessels of moments, helped me to identify and ask for what I need, and to precisely direct my energy in ways I have not been able to do in the past. It has really solidified my practice.
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Do you have a network of other artists, and how do they support you?
I'm deeply grateful for the support and encouragement of the community of artists that reside in the triangle as well as many relationships I have developed through technology around the country and world. In these relationships, I find support and encouragement.
I am personally all about community over competition.
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Who are your biggest artistic influences?
Andrea Zittell, for her use of material and ideas around space. Andrew Wyeth for his grasp of mood. John Singer Sargent for his use of light and for his ability to capture a moment. Gerhard Richter for his many bodies of work and being able to look back and seeing the ties through them all. Teil Duncan and CJ Hendry for their craft, scale, and business practices.
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How has your style changed over time?
It has changed quite a bit over time, we would need a whole another conversation for that. My work follows the idea of Object as Vessel. If you want to know more about this, come and see the experience/exhibition that I am creating for October of 2023 at the Greensboro Project Space.
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Let’s talk about this body of work featured at Charlotte Russell Contemporary. What is this body of work about?
This work leans into my signature use of wood and thread, strength and fragility, but leans towards a more playful direction. Since this was a small capsule work, I thought of the theme of what a boy in high school, Noah Post, once told me.
Tie tight knots.
This work is a nod to my mother and to my brother and the pieces are inspired by the organ of the heart, but also playfully inspired by the theme of Valentine's. The wooden hearts in particular are meant to organically mimic Valentine's heart candy.
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To title or not to title - how do you come up with the titles for your pieces?
Title! I embrace titles as they can add so much meaning and in this series Woven Strangers they are all titled with a similar method. Sometimes I will name a piece two people’s names to be literal, sometimes two things that live well together, sometimes two things that are in contrast to one another. In transplant there is joy, there is trepidation, there is hope, and there is fear. These pieces hold all of that. For example in past pieces, one piece is called Bubble and Gum to be playful whilst another one names an imagined someone who has lost their life but who has donated it and extended their life to another.
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What do you hope viewers will take away when engaging with your pieces?
Mostly, I hope they walk away with joy, especially with this bright micro collection. Depending on what time and energy the viewer wishes to invest in the piece, there is always more to discover as well.
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Which art trends inspire your current work?
I am absolutely inspired by the women of woodworking movement, the artist/mother movement, and the taking up space global movement through Thrive together.
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Describe your most favorite artwork you have made of all time.
I have a few. There is one peony from my Fruits of our Labor series that firmly grasps the delicate fertility of pregnancy and birth. There is one painting when I was on oxygen from my series 12 -20, An Adult as Rest that captures a single breath and all the life contained within. Often the piece that stands out within a collection for me is going to be the one that solves a problem within the parameters I have set for myself to define the narrative.
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Describe your dream project. If you could make anything, what would it be and why?
Currently, I am seeking out experiences and spaces with fabrication so that I can think larger scale. I just received the 2023 Artist Support Grant through the NC Arts Council/ United Arts for more power carving tools and will be attending a woodworking class at the NC State Craft Center in January/February.
Dream project is being able to continue to create this work and share it with my community. I am in the middle of writing a book and workshop about Object as Vessel and will be putting on an experience/exhibition at the Greensboro Project Space in October of 2023.
Thinking of dream spaces, I seek to be in more health spaces like hospitals and in larger museums such as today that encourage dialogue and discourse.
