Textiles

It began quietly, with a kit. In 2022, my husband gave me an Ashford Weaving Starter Kit, and within days I had woven my first wall hanging, pulling yarns from my knitting stash to expand the possibilities. Four months later, for my birthday and my promotion to full professor, he gave me a 16" Ashford rigid heddle loom. Since then, more looms have found their way into my life: a larger frame loom, a tapestry loom, a pin loom. Each one opened a new doorway. 

Weaving felt less like learning something new and more like returning to a language I once knew. I learned to sew in middle school and spent twenty years stitching my daughter’s clothes and many of my own. One Easter, I tailored a three‑piece suit for my husband. Stuffed animals, quilts, draperies, prom dresses—my hands were always busy. I embroidered, knit, and worked counted cross stitch. If it involved fiber, I tried it or dreamed of trying it. (Bobbin lace remained out of reach; the supplies were too expensive.) 

When I went back to college, all of that fell away. Study demanded the hours that once belonged to making. After finishing my PhD in 2010, I returned to knitting and quilting, grateful for the familiar rhythm of yarn and cloth. But weaving was different. It opened a window I hadn’t known I needed. 

And through that window, Oregon returned—its fog, its forests, its shifting coastal light. Those same landscapes began to echo in my research, guiding me toward stories shaped by place, memory, and material traces. In the studio and in the archive, Oregon has become a quiet companion, reminding me where my attention longs to rest. 

My influences stretch wide—from Anni Albers to Jessie Mordine Young to Rebecca Hooper—and sampling has led me into fabric collage and new ways of thinking about texture and form. I’ve woven wall hangings, table runners, scarves, pillow covers. Ideas arrive faster than I can catch them.

On my wish list: larger rigid heddle and tapestry looms and a Leclerc floor loom. There is always another loom waiting in the wings, another way to listen to fiber, another way to follow the quiet patterns of the place I come from and long to return to.