My work explores memory as it relates to place and language. Often, the act of remembering engages our perception of absence: a place, person, or experience now removed from our present self. I’m inspired by this delicate tension.
I find immense richness in the specificities of memories. To capture these, I work to meticulously render details in bookbinding and letterpress, as well as through decorative techniques such as natural dyeing, paper-cutting, and sewing. Concurrently, material choices loom large in my process as I select the cloth, paper, and color I will use in a project.
I favor representational imagery for its ability to evoke particular memories, and monotone color palettes for the language of remembrance upon which they build. I turn to handmade papers for their distinct sensory qualities. I work in the form of the book because of its history entangled in the transmission of knowledge and narrative. And I make enclosures because of their interactive potential, because they recall acts of keeping, collecting, and memorializing.
In crafting the whole object I ultimately seek to immerse my reader in an experience of memory, so that they may consider the absence at play in the work.