Abstract
My work addresses a fettered past; ephemeral elements are restrained in ways that are unexpected yet familiar. This aesthetic is informed by the freedom I felt - and feel - in the outdoors and the exhilaration I find revealed in nature. I am moved by intimate patterns of trees, bark, water movements, sand tracks, and other rhythmic displays in our environment. It is the inherent properties of natural materials that motivates me. Past experiences of constraint and limitation contrast with distorted and expanding fibers.Fibers have personality. Most often we see them as networked into a form that is woven, looped, fused, knotted, or pressed - creating a fabric. Tightly controlled and manipulated, conventional textile making prevents the temporal qualities of the fibers from emerging. Yet, when these same fibers are manipulated differently, they can be coaxed to their limit and given opportunity to express their full nature. Lines of fiber expose surface and pattern while evoking a personal awareness of freedom as they move away from constraint, responding with their own allusive form.This hypothesis recognizes fiber as the sole component of paper and paper as fabric. I propose that the essential character of a fiber is most clearly articulated when unrestrained. There is a strong inner force that speaks of autonomy in countless variations. The lines and undulations form ripples between literal and implied boundaries. This freedom, within a sheet of paper or textile with rectilinear edges,disrupts the order of an expected grid. The expression is individual, lush, and suggestive.