Since early childhood, I have spent much of my life joyfully immersed in beautiful threads and beads and in stitching them onto fabric. Throughout my life I have also been a student of the natural world, the spiritual quest, and poetry. For thousands of years and across much of the globe, others have shared these passions. Like me, they have sought to contemplate and celebrate the beautiful, the ineffable, and the sacred through the slow process of hand stitching beads and threads. As I carry on my part of this tradition, I work to create meticulously crafted art objects—visual poems that seek to speak quietly and reverently of the ineffable, the sacred,
and the beauty and vitality of our world.

My studio overlooks an oak savannah nature preserve. So much of my inspiration comes from what I see through the window over my work table—tall prairie grasses swaying in the wind, massive bur oaks with their lovely lobed leaves, the soft and ever-changing colors of the savannah and sky, and ponds full of frog song in the spring and great blue herons in the summer and fall. From here I see migrating geese, herons, and cranes, as well as a family of red tailed hawks and an occasional coyote or deer. The forms and movements of these animals are also fuel for my creative imagination. And all of the leaf forms in my art quilts and embroideries are taken directly from leaves I collect on my daily walks with Niiji, our 85 pound German Shepherd-Alaskan Malamute mix. He stops to sniff; I stop to pick up beautiful leaves. He’s a great studio companion too. I see endless beauty and life-affirming inspiration in the natural world, and I
hope to convey at least some small part of this in my artwork.

All of my life I have also been interested in world religions and the unanswerable questions that people have asked and will continue to ask as long as there are people on earth. I find great comfort and camaraderie in knowing that people have been asking these questions for thousands of years and that at least a few people in just about every culture have turned to thread and beads as a form of contemplating the ineffable. And so I carry on a rich and wonderful global tradition.

I love that the tools of my trade are so simple—needles, threads, fabrics, beads, scissors, and occasionally my sewing machine. The techniques are also fairly simple, and so the real challenge comes through the design process and the selection of beautiful materials from the amazing array available today. While I do create large art quilts, which are pieced, appliqued, and quilted entirely on my sewing machine, I also love and couldn’t live without hand work. Stitching thread and beads by hand is a meditative process, and it puts my mind in a great place. It forces me to slow down, to be present in my work, and to contemplate. What a great antidote to a culture
full of ever-accelerating flash and speed.

Work time for me varies between silence—when I am designing, researching, pondering—
and the wonderful voices present in my studio when I listen to books, poetry, and lectures while stitching. These voices help to enrich my mind, and my artwork, through the many long hours
of stitching. I am forever grateful to my public library system for access to just about
anything I’d like to listen to while working.

I am also very grateful and fortunate to have truly and wonderfully supportive family and
friends in my non-traditional career pursuits. My husband, who is an incredibly talented illustrator, is a great supporter of my work as well as a great advisor about things like artistic composition. My two children, parents, and sisters have all been enormously supportive from
the beginning of my decision to leave a career in urban planning to pursue my work as a fiber artist, and I am blessed to have some very good friends who support and encourage, as well
as inspire me with their lives and work.

I hope you find my website to be a place of quiet beauty and inspiration; I welcome
your questions and comments.