Artisan yarn and fibers | visual arts

I learned to knit the way many of us did - my mother taught me. She was staying with me to help while I recovered from the birth of my daughter, and during those quiet moments between naps and feedings and giggles and tearful expressions of love between mothers and daughters, Mom showed me how to knit a cotton dishrag. It was a simple gesture and I’m sure she thought nothing of it, but to me it was an intangible yet permanent expression of love and care.

From the moment I learned how to knit I hit the ground running. It wasn't long before I was fidgeting with double-points and lamenting too-tight cast-offs. Then suddenly I'm driving to the next state with my infant in tow to pick up four angora rabbits and the momentum just continued to build. I sit and spin these soft bunny yarns with my daughter at my feet, hoping she'll grow up to be as loving and kind as her grandmother. The fiber and the craft - it all hearkens back to that connection from the teacher to the student and the giver and receiver. Nurture. That's what the fiber arts mean to me.

My personal style, therefore, is hard to define. It is an amalgam of tactile and visual experiences, not connected by any one aesthetic, but rather by feeling. I started producing spinning fibers and yarns in order to share that experience. (And, of course, to keep my hands busy and out of trouble! Behaving myself has always been an uphill battle.) I strive to represent human emotion in my work, but also to spread joy and nurture. I guess it's my little way of making the world a softer, cozier place.