About Me

I am an interdisciplinary artist who grounds experiences in life through fiber and visual arts, as well as in poetry. In addition to creating solo art, I enjoy the collaborative process. I generate and facilitate projects that offer free access to art and art making with people who live with mental illness, for which I was awarded Minnesota State Arts Board grants (2021, 2022) and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council grant (2023). I address explore resilience in my work. I live in Minneapolis and works out of a progressive art studio, Fresh Eye Arts, in St. Paul.

Click on the paper clip below to download a PDF of my most current resumé.

About My Work

Resilience is a theme and concept that intrigues me, particularly as I go into the last quarter of my life. How can I express the concepts of aging and resilience in my work? This question informs how I show up for my visual art; my desire to experiment with reflection and how it is expressed through weaving, abstraction, and mixed media. I bridge ideas and approaches with curiosity as I generate new art connected to autobiography told through interdisciplinary art forms.
Working with repurposed, recycled, renewable, and found objects and including those from the natural world is a priority.

Artist M.C. Richards expresses a sentiment that resonates for me. She said, “I learn through my hands and my eyes and my skin what I could never learn through my
brain.”

What I'm Up To

Here are a few recent projects. You can see more events and news below.

Focusing on aging as I lean into the last quarter of my life and how this impacts my life as an artist
Working on Primary Purpose, a series of weavings exploring a difficult personal experience in mothering
Working as a mentee with SAORI weaving and teaching artist Chiaki O'Brien
Purchased SAORI loom from Chiaki O'Brien on which I am creating new bodies of work
Actively applying for artist residencies to work on my memoir titled Artobiography.
Participated in the Eye to Eye Exhibition at Fresh Eye Gallery collaborating with Chloe Russell Chang
Taking a class at North House Folk School with Jo Wood
Exploring the intersection of addressing stigma and its connection to the larger pursuit of disability justice

Projects & Events

UPCOMING

The title of the exhibition and the large installation piece is Primary Purpose. Primary Purpose is a physical manifestation of difficult life experiences. I frequently say: I thrive because I believe that darkness, difficulty, and even death can give rise to creativity, grace, and joy. Resilience and impermanence are concepts that encourage me to see how I fit into the inevitability of change. A focus on using repurposed materials is like using past happenings in life on which to build personal resilience. Currently I am focused on aging and on how spirituality and reflection appear prominently in my process and, in turn, my finished artwork. Primary Purpose spans from seeing the beauty in everything to being present with the discomfort in life and accepting change. This is essential as I embrace the challenges and beauty in aging.

PAST

Unpacking Our Histories: Embracing Hope & Resilience

Unpacking Our Histories is a continuation of my commitment to providing art and art experiences for those of us living with mental health issues/illness. In a 4-part community building set of activities, participants will reflect upon and honor our lives through the creation of a collaborative weaving. We will incorporate symbols of and/or actual items from our lives. This project honors the history of the individual and underscores the commonality of the collective experience.

Our Personal Stories

Book Release Reception

Join us on Saturday, June 10 to celebrate the release of Our Personal Stories in Resilience, a book release reception.

Our Personal Stories project was an eight-week exploration of resilience. Eight of us, all women, recognized and named, honored and supported, and then wrote about the strength that is seeded in our histories. The stories reveal and build, word by word, upon the layers of the resilience that reflect the strong and capable women we are in our own words. May you find inspiration here.

Featuring readings from:

Cecile Bellamy

Janetgrace Bergman

Martha Bird

Morgan Brooke

Kimberly A. Laudert

Rose Mullenix

T.L. Reeves

Amy Wilderson

Saturday, June 10, 3:30 – 5:30 PM
Free with light refreshments

Fresh Eye Gallery

4238 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55409

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.⁠

In the Middle

Co-curated a group exhibition with Ben Merritt at the Fresh Eye Arts’ St Paul Studio Gallery

Bona Fide

Group exhibition at Fresh Eye Gallery

Exhibition Dates: March 30 - May 6

More info here

the bed beside me

Group exhibition at Fresh Eye Gallery

Exhibition Dates: May 10 - June 17, 2023

Reception: Friday, May 12, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Eye to Eye REMAKE

Participating in Fresh Eye Gallery’s Eye to Eye exhibition project for the 2nd time. Eye to Eye is founded on the principles of radical inclusivity, where the gallery intentionally brings artists with and without disabilities together, who have also never met before, for the purpose of building a stronger creative community. Artists are paired up in teams of two to collaborate and create new artwork. I will be collaborating Chloe Russell Chang.

Artist Collaboration: April 29 – July 13

Exhibition Dates: August 3 – September 9

Opening Reception: August 11, 6 – 9 PM

Artist Talk: August 24, 6:30 – 8 PM

Fiber and Multimedia Artist