| printable artist statement | download
acrobat |
I feel personally charged to preserve and interpret
African Americans’ singular and shared experiences
of displacement, loss, joy, and resolve. The rich storytelling
heritage of quilting provides a natural medium for recalling
and recording those experiences and memories. Each quilt
I make is a visual narrative in cloth. Each quilt keeps
a memory safe.
Those memories take shape on art quilts that fuse fine
and vernacular artistic modalities. I painstakingly transform
the canvas used in most of my quilt tops into a textural
study that mimics leather, which is a prevalent material
in masks and talismanic amulets made across the African
continent. The surface design features themes that often
reoccur in my work, including exaggerated thread length
and thickness, a succinct use of color and embellishments,
and a measured use of hand and machine quilting that allows
texture and space to dominate the visual space of the
work. The backing of each quilt features traditional materials
and a graphic composition often associated with the improvisational
genre of African American quilting.
My current photographic and non-figurative contemporary
quilts are infused with a strong sense of cultural memory
and continuity. Each complete art quilt is a synthesis
of cherished and changing quilting techniques. These modern
and traditional constructions bring the memory of centuries
of American craft into the present. |
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