I have been fortunate to spend my career doing what I love as a toy designer. I was allowed to explore multiple ways to engage a child through the excitement of interacting with physical toys. Today, I am thrilled to continue playing and investigating through image making within the reality of texture and color.

From the earliest doll (the symbol of life) humans have gone out of their way to create ways that could help describe existence and thought.

My fascination of representing the essence of life has led me to my current practice of integrating fabric piecing and portraiture. Experiments in live portrait sketching and painting directly on repurposed fabric has pushed me toward acrylic paint. Pastel dye sticks guide edges and inform the brush where to land. Cutting into the painted fabric reduces the image into custom patches that can be reassembled with fabric scraps to tell a different story, more complicated and sweeping. Assembling colors and shapes is like painting with fabric. Top stitches create an additional layer of intrigue, informing the viewer with directionality and connectivity. 

Combining fabric scraps and live painting helps to create an interpretation of complicated life experiences and an opportunity for infinite storytelling to the viewing audience.