Mother's Milk: Meditations on 7,300 Hours of Nursing My Children I

My piece “Mother’s Milk: Meditation on 7,300 Hours of Nursing My Children" is a piece that combines tapestry and embroidery techniques in a way that I think of as “mixed media” but as it is all Textile Art, I’m not sure that it counts. It is an exploration in marking time and making visible the largely unseen, unpaid, and underappreciated labor that goes into parenting generally and parenting small children in particular.

The piece makes use of a milk/wool yarn for both the french knots and as a part of the tapestry element. This yarn fascinated me when I first discovered it as a young mother nursing a small child with years yet ahead of me as a chestfeeding parent. It is made from fiber made from protein derived from milk and mixed with wool fibers. It has a gorgeous shine and drape and resonated deeply with me as a fellow mammal actively engaged in making copious amounts of daily nourishment from my body with which to feed my young.

The french knots in this piece are a gesture at a mark-making, time-keeping, practice of abstracting emotion and labor into tangible points. It is deeply inspired by Patti Maciesz’s (check out her Instagram!) work with #billthepatriarchy and the Invisible Labor Union.

I submitted this piece to the Spring 2024 juried art show “Food” at Fairbanks Arts Association. I was extremely pleased and honored when it was not only accepted but won an Honorable Mention from the juror!

Birth Stories Canvases Accepted into 64th Parallel at the Fairbanks Arts Association - and an Honorable Mention!

I’m so excited and honored to be able to announce that Birth Stories #007 and Birth Stories #010 were accepted into the 64th Parallel Art Show at the Bear Gallery at Fairbanks Arts Association! Birth Stories #007 also got an Honorable Mention award from the juror. This is an annual fall juried show that open to all Interior Alaskan artists and it so beautiful to know that my pieces are showcased amongst such utter brilliance!

This is the one that received an Honorable Mention.

We attended the Opening Reception last night and it was a really lovely time. It is always fascinating to see the way that a juror constructs a juried show. There was a definite and consistent sense of curation and cohesion in the still incredibly diverse show this month.

You should definitely go see it if you are local to Fairbanks.

The 2023 64th Parallel show will be on display all month in the Bear Gallery at Pioneer Park in the third floor of the Centennial Center. Both pieces are framed and available for purchase through the Gallery.

After the Rain

After the Rain is an exploration of the joy and growth that can come after difficult times. This collection was equal parts a reflection of the emotional experience of entering the wider world again (engaging in work and school and in person friendships) after years of quarantine and isolation with small children, a reaffirmation of my love for the tradition and craft of handweaving, and a self indulgent explosion of rainbows.

The warp is a combination of hand dyed and commercially dyed 8/2 cottons, the ground weft is a commercially dyed 16/2 cotton.

The pattern wefts are approximately fingering weight, the rainbow above is hand spun while the vintage rainbow below is handdyed commercial sock yarn.

This is woven in a slightly modified traditional overshot pattern known as “Sun Moon and Stars” which is #74 in The Shuttlecraft Book of American Handweaving by Mary Meigs Atwater. Like much traditional overshot, it was woven on a four shaft loom. I deeply adore the juxtaposition of a very traditional overshot pattern with modern color choices and hand dyed yarns, so you can absolutely expect to see more explorations of this in future.

The After the Rain warp was actually going to in a quite different direction: full of moody blues and explorations of mental health until my 4 year old daughter requested “a rainbow sweater with a hood!” I certainly couldn’t say no! And once I got dyeing, all I wanted to do was put rainbows all over this warp. Thus, After the Rain was born. This ROYGVBV set of colorways is what I’m using in her sweater, and there’s a few iterations of it in the shop.

This collection is comprised of both woven pieces coming off of the loom, and corresponding hand dyed yarns. It is a way of creating a collection that I hope to explore further, working within a theme in all of my chosen mediums and releasing them into the world. Someday I hope to have my ish together to release them all at the same time and debut the entire collection vs. letting bits and pieces out ahead of others. But I’m very pleased with it overall!