From the Artist: My primary medium is fabric and thread. Fabric stirs our sense of touch - we are wrapped in cloth from birth until death - making it an intimate language. I developed my approach by using scissors and sewing machine as drawing tools. Treating fabrics as paints, I draw with scissors, layering freely cut contours into a complex, two-dimensional surface. Using extensive machine stitching, I adjoin raw edges while further defining form. Thread color and width are continually modulated to qualify the drawing gesture.
The tactile richness of printed material attracts me for its pointillistic qualities and how it engages the eye’s participation. By approaching the human figure through my intricate technique of piecing, layering and machine stitching, I pushed the narrative potential of this medium.

The aging face has become my canvas. On-site life studies are the source and the foundation for translation into fabric. While creating a series modeled after elders in my community, my work focuses on the universal issues of aging and mortality, and our societal taboo against seeing these transitions as a natural part of life.

These images have the power to influence social change by aesthetically and psychologically challenging ageism. Through illuminating the process of aging and dying, they alleviate the silence that surrounds these issues. My work opens a dialogue that is essential to our times and our lives. Fabric has become the perfect vehicle with which to narrate what is multifaceted, often non-verbal, and even invisible in the human experience.

Techniques: Machine pieced, hand quilted, hand dyed
Culture: American
Geographic Location: North and Central America, United States
Credit Line: The Marbaum Collection, Gift of Hilary and Marvin Fletcher