Studio Work

Toward the Light (#1), 2025, collage with hand-cut paper, 18 x 18 inches (artwork size)

I’m an artist, craftswoman, and democracy activist in equal parts, placing energy in my studio and in civic society alike. My practice extends out of folk-art traditions, pattern and decoration movements, minimalism, and geometric abstraction, with a multidisciplinary output that spans drawing, collage, sculpture, text, frequent collaboration, and public projects. In recent years, American quilt patterns have become central to the visual and symbolic language I draw from, offering a vast lexicon of motifs to experiment with -linking the past and the future, the personal and the political. (To read more link HERE).

VOTE for Democracy, 2020, offset poster, made in collaboration with Lexi Visco.

Alongside making of physical work in my studio, in 2017 I formed Art for Democracy - a self-initiated public art project that began with an anti-hate poster for the City of Berkeley that dovetailed into a national campaign to boost voter participation. The project is currently carried out as a collaboration with visual artist and graphic designer, Hope Meng. Together we produce a series of public messages each election cycle that encourage people to vote for meaningful issues related to social and environmental justice, rather than a single party or candidate. The project is ongoing and will adapt for the long haul.

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, exhibition view, 2021, Sarah Shepard Gallery

ABOVE: *A Language for the Commons* (2021, hand-cut paper, 60 x 70 inches)

A Language for the Commons 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 collage 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. From this piece, the project of making concrete quilts emerged.

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.