Artist Statement
In my work, flowers symbolize our humanity, sacredness, resiliency and hope.
Since 2017, I’ve collected and photographed over 7000 specimens of everyday flowers, cultivated blooms, native wildflowers and weeds found along the roadside.
I combine photography and tapestry with thread, marrying organic subjects with artificial processes, digital manipulation with handmade – a tension between divine and human nature.
About By a Thread:
"By a Thread" is a current series exploring areas of our world that are fragile, fraying or coming apart as a direct response to what I observe happening on our social, political and environmental fronts. The work represents in a visual way how these social and natural landscapes are weakening.
In this work, floral photographic tapestries are being dismantled or mounds of thread are being added to flower imagery. The act of unravelling speaks to how things have been coming undone “one thread at a time” while the additive threads are intended as a gesture of mending.
This series aims to facilitate a pause and moment of self-reflection to consider: Are we contributing to the mending or fraying of our world?
My concern about our well-being as a culture, growing lack of empathy, many forms of injustice & disregard for the environment raises the question of what role can my work play in addressing what is damaged or broken.
I want to approach topics in our culture that are a bit uncomfortable, but in a gentle way. Using the familiarity of flowers can lead into deeper subjects, dialogue and cultivate a moment for reflection, understanding – the possibility of an internal shift leading to external change.
By a Thread, 2020
Hand-strung tendrils of thread cascade from my floral photographs, as if nature itself is unraveling.
This series explores the term “hanging by a thread” implying something is in an uncertain state & not likely to survive or succeed.
As our environmental, social & political landscapes continue to divide & fray, the metaphor of a garden, idyllic & beautiful, reflects hope of an optimistic outcome, a return to connectedness & well-being.
I combine photography with thread, marrying organic subjects with artificial processes, digital manipulation with handmade – a tension between divine and human nature.