Fiber and Found Objects

December 28, 2024 - January 18, 2025 My motto for 2025 is "finished is better than perfect". It took three weeks to hand stitch this quilt from single-use plastic bags, merging materials and ideas to reflect on some of the current challenges we face today. To begin, the dual crisis of plastic pollution and overconsumption of both products and information. The white bags were sourced from Home Goods stores and the blue from newspaper delivery bags. The image of a QR code and in particular, the direct link to my website, (it's a bit glitchy but it works) serves as commentary on our fixation with technology, our compulsion to consume and create content and our obsession with self promotion. At the same time, the act of hand-stitching, (a meditative, deliberate, and inherently slow process), sharply contrasts the instantaneous nature of digital content creation. It highlights the tension between the rapid pace of technology and the mindful labor of traditional craft. The maze like pattern of the QR code symbolizes the challenges of navigating today's tech-driven landscape. Staying relevant often feels like an endless labyrinth, demanding constant adaptation to new tools, apps, and platforms- or risking obsolescence by abandoning it altogether. It's a battle I have fought through several stages of my 40 + years working as an artist. The first was in the 80's when as an editorial art director, I was faced with the decision to learn how to use a computer or retire from graphic design altogether. I chose to embrace it, albeit reluctantly as I missed the hands on experience of cutting and pasting with a ruler and an x-acto blade. This piece is a reflection of that dichotomy: the friction between speed and slowness, relevance and obsolescence, technology and tradition. By using discarded materials to create a symbol of our current times, it is both a critique and a celebration of the choices we face in a fast-paced, interconnected world and a statement about resilience, adaptation, aging and the enduring power of slow, mindful work amidst a culture of immediacy. Repurposed single-use plastic bags. 34 1/2" x 35 1/2"

OVER INDULGENCE Hand stitched single use plastic. Weaving is both my medium and my message, a profound metaphor for life and the dualities that shape it- fragility and resilience, chaos and order, production and waste, warp and weft. There's a harmony that emerges when opposing factors are intertwined, and a structure created that embodies strength, order and balance; a union of contrasts that reflect the beauty of coexistence and the interconnectedness of all things. Working with single-use plastic bags and food packaging, my materials often bear text that reveal their unmistakable origins as remnants of consumer excess and waste. The transforming of waste becomes both a visual reminder and a call to action, challenging us to consider the impact of our consumption on the environment and on one another. Currently on display at the Pound Ridge Library. Visual Storytelling runs through March 7, 2025.

$Broken; How do we heal this fractured, broken world? 2024 Plastic bags hand stitched to muslin. Broken is a personal reflection on the dark times we are living in; a heartbroken response to the tragedy of the October 7th massacre in Israel and the d$

Broken; How do we heal this fractured, broken world? 2024 Plastic bags hand stitched to muslin. Broken is a personal reflection on the dark times we are living in; a heartbroken response to the tragedy of the October 7th massacre in Israel and the devastating impact on innocent lives on both sides of the conflict. Through this piece, I strive to convey the pain, complexity, and humanity woven into this moment in time.

Hand stitched plastic from single use plastic consumer waste.

Hand stitched plastic bags.

Hand stitched single use plastic and beach trash.

A Tapestry of Trash: Sign of the Times Transforming discarded waste into a harmonious composition, inviting reflection on plastic pollution and overconsumption. and encouraging the viewer to contemplate their environmental footprint, the delicate balance between nature and human impact, and an instinct to find beauty in unexpected places.

Hand stitched beach trash and plastic bags on vintage repurposed fabric from a discarded pillowcase. Amongst the Wasteflowers 2024 16" x 16"

Hand stitched bojagi embellished with found objects picked up on the beach.

Woven and hand stitched plastic bags embellished with embroidery.

Machine stitched plastic waste. My contemporary take on a crazy quilt.

Custom quilt. Machine pieced and machine quilted.

Custom quilt detail. Machine stitched.

Custom quilts. Machine pieced and machine quilted.

Custom quilt. Machine stitched.

Custom T-shirt quilt. Machine stitched.

Custom quilt designed for the Crystal World Cruise in 2001. It was pieced by hand and assembled by machine. The centerpiece of each hexagon was embellished with embroidery and paint, capturing memories of the passengers on board. Completed while traveling up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town to South Hampton, England. The finished quilt hangs in the Crystal corporate offices in CA.

Machine pieced fabric scraps. Embellished with beach trash, hand stitched. 2023. My Earth Day quilt project was made entirely of fabric remnants from prior projects, thread scraps from months of stitching face masks during Co-vid and beach trash picked up along the shore or in the sand. Plastic bottle caps and rings, plastic straws, sand toys, dental pics, bandaids, food packaging, masks, construction debris, fishing line, fishing nets, hair ties, bubble wands, balloons, bubble wrap, styrofoam, bits of fiber, and shards of plastic that have broken down into microplastics and microfibers. Private Collection.

FLAG OF REMEMBRANCE The Flag of Remembrance is a tribute to the victims of 9/11/01. It is part of the permanent collection of large works at the World Trade Center Memorial Museum in NYC. Digitally printed cotton. Machine pieced. 22' x 26'

BROKEN quilt detail. Embroidery on plastic.

Custom quilted wall hanging. Anniversary gift.

Custom quilted pillow. Graduation gift.

Custom quilted pillow. Machine stitched. In memory of.

Statement stitching. Hand stitching on muslin. Microplastics from the beach. Sadly, most brands of bagged tea contain plastic. It's not just the silky, pyramid shaped bags. For tea bags to keep their shape in hot liquid, a plastic polymer, polypropylene (a known endocrine disruptor) is added to seal the bag. Scientists at McGill University in Montreal found that steeping a single plastic tea bag leached billions of microplastics and nano plastics into a single cup of tea. Aside from the potential health hazard to our bodies, the plastic content in tea bags make them a bad option for compost material as they won't completely decompose. Opting for loose tea is a simple switch you can make to reduce the number of microplastics entering your body and our waterways.