woven portraits

My mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. To help her remember the faces and names of loved ones, my family made her a photo album. Friends and family wrote her letters and we put them in her album next to photographs. My father said that mom looked at that book everyday and it helped her connect with the people she loved and the memories that they shared. Gradually memories fade and unravel, leaving behind fragments of vivid detail.

Through my artwork I create woven portraits of people and places in time. I search to discover a relationship between the person or place in the photograph and the textile. A lost photograph and a textile fragment offer me a rich beginning for a story, a chance to honor and recreate a memory.

I begin with a textile and a photograph. A third element emerges as I unravel the cloth and reweave the threads into a new textile. The process of unraveling the threads is meditative for me. First, I deconstruct and unravel the textile, then I reweave combining the original threads with new threads on my loom. Through the process of re-weaving I create a new layer, while adding stitching and other methods of embellishment. With each process a new generation of pattern and material is combined with the old, merging the past with the present. Two or more elements, a textile and a photograph come together to tell a story about a person or place in time.

I love to create custom pieces to honor a person, a memory or an occasion. The work created will become a family heirloom with a unique story to pass on. Please contact me to discuss and share your story and memories.