Why Hand-Stitching & Quilting is Core to My Practice
As October settles in with its crisp air and turning leaves, I find myself reflecting on the deep connection between making and memory.
My mother introduced me to sewing through Halloween costumes, transforming the holiday from consumerism into a ritual of invention. I remember the scratch of rough felt, the smell of cut fabric, and the patient work of combining materials by hand. That feeling—the intimate knowledge of a material transforming under my focused effort—was magic. It was my first lesson: the hand is a tool of both necessity and boundless imagination.
That childhood energy now guides my practice.
Incorporating hand-sewing and quilting into my paintings is more than aesthetic; it's an act of intention. In a world of fast, mass-produced items, the quiet rhythm of needle and thread becomes resistance.
The slowness of each stitch forces me into a dialogue with the canvas that no brushstroke can replicate. Each one is a timestamp, recording the moment and emotion invested. This technique speaks directly to my themes: inheritance, legacy, vulnerability, and mending. Just as a quilt mends disparate scraps into a cohesive whole, thread mends the space between past and present.
The following three pieces reflect the energy and space I find in my quilting technique.
Weaving Through My Story
“Ode to My Mother No. 5” | Acrylic painting sewn and quilted on Canvas, 13 ¾ x 24 ½ x 2 ¼ in
This is what happens when my past paintings find new purpose. In Ode to My Mother No. 5, I transform discarded canvases into something profoundly intimate—a quilted meditation on my own family bonds.
This piece explores the complexity I've experienced in my familial relationships—both the challenges and the connections. Through deliberate quilting, I deconstruct my earlier paintings—works that no longer serve their purpose—and reconstruct them into a visual narrative about the relationships that shaped me simply by being born into my family.
Just as these painted fragments are sewn together to create something new, I've woven together the influences and patterns I inherited as I've forged my own path. The quilting itself becomes my act of reckoning and transformation, turning what was fragmented into something whole..
Stitching Emotional Terrain
"Ode to My Mother No. 9" | Acrylic painting sewn and quilted on Canvas, 10 x 10 x 1.5 in
In this intimate square format, I explore how I've navigated the emotional entanglements that come with the complexity of a mother-daughter relationship.
The compact scale creates an intensity I felt—pulling me into the layered relationships and inherited patterns I've carried. Each stitch became a line of connection and tension, holding together fragments that represent both the challenges I've faced and the deep ties of love that remain. The quilting itself is my act of taking what was fragmented and transforming it into new understanding.
Poking Through What Chokes Our Shared Spaces
"Invasive Species No. 6" | Mixed Media: Deconstructed paintings sewn together, mixed media and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 x 1.5 in
Malignant, parasitic, unchecked—invasive species drift into new ecosystems and choke the life out of native residents. Some target specific creatures while others kill indiscriminately, suppressing everything that is not them.
The stitching technique that allows me to mend familial fragments in my Ode to My Mother series takes on a different urgency here. Each stitch becomes an act of containment and resistance against toxic forces in our social landscape—forces that go by various names: Spotted lanternfly, cane toad, incel, misogynist…
Through deconstructed paintings sewn together with paper collage and acrylic, I create a visual ecosystem where beauty and threat coexist—a reminder that we must actively stitch our communities back together and protect the fabric of our shared spaces from forces that would unravel them.