ABOUT

Originally from Rochester, NY, I’m a fiber artist who received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Michigan. I’ve spent the majority of my professional career in academia as a higher education administrator and faculty member at Syracuse University. In 1998, I joined SU as a faculty member in Fiber Arts/Material Studies. In 2008, I was named Dean of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts and returned to faculty in 2016.

My recent works explore reconstructed narratives, memory, and meaning. Eye portals are a reflective look at the past and how it informs us of the present. The exaggerated scale of these eye portals, that dome and protrude from the wall are like eyes in the past breaking through the wall, or one’s past peering into the present as thoughts made manifest. Their size and color odd, and perhaps unnerving, while the lush tufted construction evokes the promise of comfort never provided. The portals become readable as eyes as one increases one’s distance from the gaze. I see these as portraits of specific people from history and lives lived.

My knitted rug series is similarly influenced by the intersection of past and present, informed by the experiences of my mother’s life and my changing relationship with time. I refer to the series as History Lessons. All are connected by the use of text, readable and not—a found letter, old study notes, and archived images of papers from historic figures long gone—juxtaposed with figurative images from past and present reflecting a constantly fluid expression of time.