Seagrass, something I already knew, weakened weft, opportunistic holes, birch wood, things that are no longer here, repression

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I was never taught to weave. My great-grandmother was never inclined to show me how to make a vessel to haul our heavy fish from the sea to the hearth. No one showed me how to set up a loom, stitch a basket, or twine grass into an object meant to hold our food.

I was taught to bury things; Shown how to hide roots in deep, dark, damp soil with the assumption that that’s what was necessary for them to grow. The greenery above the ground the only evidence of a healthy body below. I was instructed many times to dig holes for the squirrels and rabbits the family dog had killed. Each impact of the shovel to dirt reminding me that an innocent animal had been killed simply for the pleasure of the hunt. I was taught to bury my tears because wet eyes are a sign of weakness. Often scolded for being the kid who let their emotions run around on their sleeve, unprotected and wild.

The unintentionality of assumed weakness offers the opportunity for what’s being held to fall through. Maybe a small piece is meant to get away.

Ceramic-coated rattan, empty internal spaces, earthenware, glass, basket ashes, iron oxide, dead traditions

Seagrass, found rooted tree

String, twigs, maybe hay, all have to be worked through the hand, and the fingers in a particular way. Pulling, twisting, pushing, sometimes painfully into the appropriate place over and over again in the same motion. Someone who already knows how these materials should move to create a basket guides each strand gently and specifically.

My grandmother of countless generations before me used her hands to do this in the same way I do it now. As I sit with a ball of seagrass, I think of her, what was she thinking about, coping with, eating, singing, and experiencing while she was simply recording life with her hands to make something she needed?

Cordage made from personal walks with found natural material. 

​Experimental textiles made in residence at The Burren College of Art. 

Polymerized acrylonitrile, clay 

(Pomegranate, Lemon, Sumo orange, Onion, Jicama, Sweet potato, Star fruit, Guava, 

Butternut squash, Lime, Pear, Coconut.) 

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In this work, touch negotiates the relationship between land and reproductive bodies. Soft clay is manipulated into a long, flat slab, then marked by the remains of sepals, stamens, stigmas, and pedicels from fruits and vegetables. A thin layer of latex covers each impression, taking an exact replica from the clay. The raw clay is allowed to dry out and change forms naturally. But the clay lifted out of the impressions by the latex gets stuck, unable to find its way back to its original body and the earth. My body is left wondering how we’ve become so similar yet so separate as we occupy the same space. 

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Sacrificing Andromeda

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Disturbances are determined by sweeping steps 

Sacrificing Andromeda, chained to rocks that weigh on warmth. Vulnerable black soil mounds over voids, with vibrations they churn. I smelled fluid and iron from the gaping holes. 

Scavenged by wolves, helpless to understanding 

Hands and thumbs have already erased their histories. A simple price paid for incubated eggs in soil blindly taken. The bowels of the network oozing paper with long lost value. 

Scrambling of power, contributions are over sited in grids. Miles on miles under our feet but depleted in wombs buried in contaminated hollows. Brought to time, we were the connection to circles and circumstance. Never a God, we made these worlds collide. 

Polyethylene sheeting, state soil, machine stitching, acrylic, EPA permissive guidelines

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The devitalization of soil and the use of land for patriarchal development are directly related to the human impulse to dominate and control women. The productivity of soil and

women ultimately determine the existence of all life. “In Western patriarchal culture, both

women and nonhuman nature have been devalued alongside their assumed opposites–men and

civilization/culture” (Kemmerer, 2011).

Women’s role in current and past societies have been strictly based on the needs and desires of men. These societies seek to domesticate women as

they have domesticated land, cattle, chickens, cats, and dogs. There is evidence of this within

social patterns in beauty standards, child-rearing rituals, household expectations, rape culture,

federal and state legislation, and systematic wage gaps. Therefore, we must understand and

redefine the capabilities and limitations of soil, nature, and women in within current culture.  

You Have The Tools, 2021

Performance Still 

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The act of baking bread seems simple. Relatable to the act of getting a job and earning a wage. As women, we are often passed up for opportunities, not given the proper tools and judged based on gender as to our abilities. “women’s work” is of lower monetary value than men’s work, as a result occupation that are feminized are considered to deserve less monetarily than men. 

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