q and a.

Just finishing answering some questions for someone researching me and thought I would share a little. They are the ones that I thought may say something a little different then previous interviews.

- Why is your subject important to you? I work autobiographically and my relationships are my everyday, they are what sustain me, inspire me, challenge me, build me up, and break me down. I also want to make work about something that everyone can relate to and everyone has relationships or desires towards one.


- What are the inspirations behind your work? my daily life, the beauty of everyday life, the beauty found in imperfection

- What artists have influenced you? Sally Mann, the photographer, was very influential to me early on as an artist. She made very powerful work about her children, Immediate Family, and it was very personal and raw. She received a lot of criticism about the work and the sexuality expressed by her children but she stood up for the honesty in her work and acknowledged the reality of childrens behaviors and how they mimic us. I was always inspired by the risk that she took and her courage in standing up for it.
Tracy Emin for how personal her work is - to take such incredible personal content but make it affect and relate to us all is amazing.
Lousie Bourgeois for so many reasons I cannot count.


- How do you develop your ideas? I am kind of always thinking about what is next but generally an idea comes to me and I spend a lot of time thinking about it, writing about it, visualizing it, and if it stays around long enough it gets made. I generally think of my work either in series or for a specific exhibit or space so this informs the process a lot. The work take so long to make that while I am making one body of work I am thinking about what is next?

- How do you display finished pieces? it varies but generally pinned on the wall. I do not like showing my work stretched or behind glass. By stretching the fabric is loses its sense of flow and gravity it stops "being" fabric. And as soon as you put a piece like mine behind glass it feels like an artifact. My work is very much about the present moment and not about memory so keeping it away from the box and glass helps the viewer to come at it this way. Often their is an aspect of installation as well...I like to have something that places the object in the home more then the white box of the gallery- like a lamp, or chair, or table. I like to take the viewer a little out of "Gallery" viewing mode and enter the work more personally.

OKAY!!!! BACK TO stiching.