Studio Work

Repair, 2024, watercolor, pen, paper collage, 7 x 18 inches

I identify as an artist, craftswoman, and activist for democracy in equal parts. Working with tactile processes in a range of mediums including drawing, paper collage, wood sculpture, and embroidery, my studio output extends out of folk-art and craft traditions while also being connected to minimalism, geometric abstraction, Op art, social practice, feminist and political art. Alongside the spare use of text, the visual language of my work is rooted in a lexicon of shared American quilt patterns latent with symbolic meaning, alluding to social justice, the natural world, queer culture, and the greater universe that is our home. (To read more link HERE).

In tandem with my studio practice, in recent years I’ve generated several projects to bolster civic engagement in the United States. Art for Democracy began in 2017 with an anti-hate campaign for the City of Berkeley and dovetailed into a national public art initiative to boost voter engagement across the country, currently carried out as a collaboration with visual artist and graphic designer, Hope Meng. Together we produce a series of public messages every election cycle in the form of physical posters, billboards, free downloadable files, and images that are widely shared on social media that encourage people to vote for meaningful reasons, rather than a single party or candidate. To date, hundreds of thousands of posters have been distributed for free in over 100 cities and posters from our archives have been collected by the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the History Collection at the San Francisco Public Library. The project will adapt and continue for the long haul.

On this website, I offer small print editions for sale. Larger original works can be found at Sarah Shepard Gallery, Haines Gallery, or in my studio by appointment.

Star of a New Name, 2018, (side view) walnut and maple, 48 x 48 x 2 inches

Drawings for Morning, 2021, watercolor and acrylic pen on paper, 16 x 16 inches each.

*A Language for the Commons* (2021, hand-cut paper, 60 x 70 inches) is a monumental paper collage made over the course of a year during the pandemic. Composed of 143 singular and unrepeated squares of hand-cut paper set in relief, the piece is loosely based on the Jane Sickle Quilt completed in 1863 in Vermont during the Civil War. The piece connects that historical era with our own, incorporating quilt patterns have been shared across communities in the United States for centuries with the addition of symbols that represent equality, democracy, inclusion, queer culture, plant forms and cosmic images of the universe. (In a private collection in California.)

The images below show a selection of works made between 2014 and 2024 — drawings, embroidery pieces, collages assembled with hand-cut and painted papers, and low-relief wood wall sculptures. The works on paper are fitted in handmade wood frames by Smallworks, SF.