ARTIST STATEMENT

Like any artistic practice, my work finds its foundation in the events and environs of my life. The most significant part of my life has been spent on my family's grain farm. The years of living and working intimately with the land have cultivated a deep connection. My practice endeavors to explore the mechanisms of this attachment to not only understand the human need for connection but to also navigate around my own notions of identity upon the land as a woman and a descendant of European settlers. A desire to create my own feminine artistic vernacular has seen my work shift from mostly paintings to include fiber arts as well. For me the 'thread' has become an important visual metaphor for the symbolic roots that connect individuals to place

Textile artist, Anni Albers stated that cloth was an event of two threads crossing. In weaving, it would be the crossing of warp and weft threads. In my work it also becomes roots and rhizomes which I first employed in my thesis show. Rhizomes are modified stems that grow horizontally underground whereas roots grow basically in the vertical. Not all plants have rhizomes but one that is very well known is prairie grass. Their multi-directional root structure allows them to survive en masse like a community or family literally knit together with their roots. As I explore this intersection of thread, of horizontal/vertical, of roots/rhizome I find myself consistently drawn to relate this to energy and frequency patterns. It can be agreed that everything in existence has energy. There has been an event, an intersection, an exchange of energy between myself and the land I live and work upon.