Storytelling

My practice begins the way I think: out loud, in conversation, with an idea that needs a listener before it can take shape. I make work to decompress, to re-center, and to keep my hands moving—often without a plan, following intuition and the physical relief of building. Lately that has meant hand-built vessels formed from the overlooked materials of daily life—fabric from my closet, yarn, scraps—objects constructed quickly enough to stay responsive to feeling. Color is always the entry point: I cover paper in mixed hues, layer and cut, then collage images into place until an abstract field starts to hold a story. I am drawn to what has been forgotten—a picture left inside a book, a fragment pulled from its original context—and I give it another home, often inside handmade sketchbooks built from recycled materials. Books are not just reference; they are structure, refuge, and container. As a middle school librarian, I live inside systems of order, yet my work gently disrupts them: I pull things out, mirror them, duplicate them, build patterns until a strange “plant” appears, and invite viewers to look longer—like a child with a puzzle page—searching for repetition, clues, and meaning. This concept is part of my daily job working with my students and my art career. 

Across collage, embroidery, painting, and small constructed forms, I return to the body and to character. Portraits begin with blind contour drawings—no mapping, no perfection—so the face arrives slightly off-kilter but unmistakably alive. I prefer distinctive features and unusual physiognomies over familiar ideals; I want a face to read as a person with history. In stitched works, I translate this same attention into tactile lines, sometimes embroidering directly onto photographic source material, tracing tendons, veins, and connective structures as a way of adding time back into the image through labor. My earliest studies in forensic anthropology at LSU sharpened my eye for bones and evidence; later training in theater design for my BA taught me how to construct worlds. Recently in getting my Master’s in Library and Information Sciences, I dove into archival photos seeking more forgotten stories from photographic evidence. These educational influences meet in work that feels part archive, part invention—objects and images that hold narrative without locking it into a single interpretation.

I make constantly, especially when I feel stuck: if I don’t know what to do, I paint paper, trusting it will become material for a future piece. As a female with a late neurodivergent diagnosis, I am learning that what I’ve been doing all along is a part of my brain seeking comfort and order. I’m not precious about outcomes. When a work is finished, I let it go and move forward, keeping only what still feels unresolved. I love to find pieces that I hate and work on them until they feel ready to release. My aim is not fame, but momentum—work made with pleasure, urgency, and a desire to share. I’m learning to think bigger about where this practice can live: not just in the privacy of a home studio, but in conversation with viewers, in rooms built for looking, and in bodies of work that hold together as clearly as a well-loved book.