“I have always had an admiration for things that are well made, or not even well made. What you have to make in order to live.”

I create to live and to remember. I create in celebration of my aliveness, and as a way to cope with it, too.
I look to explore themes of memory in my art, through the lens of both ancestral memory and living with memory issues. 

I practice fiber arts – arts which are sometimes called craft, arts which are at times practical, arts which tend to belong to women, and which are therefore devalued in the art world. I practice these arts to connect with my ancestry: the women who were relied upon to create in order for themselves and their families to, quite literally, stay alive.

My artistic practice extends across a variety of fiber arts, depending on which fits my neurodivergent mind’s mood. At its core is weaving, the craft through which I feel most connected to my ancestry. Tracing back my paternal lineage, the women (and at times the men, too) wove their own cloth to be used in the house, from blankets to clothing, and more. Hand quilting and machine sewing, embroidery, and knitting all play their parts as well, and my ever-curious mind ventures into new waters, too, like spinning my own fiber.

Rather than simply documenting my textile works, I view photography as an additional core element of my artistic practice. I look to engage with my textiles in my photographs, as well as exploring themes of memory and ancestral legacy. I am particularly interested in long-exposures, and their relationship to temporality – I find that this is a lens through which I can examine these themes of interest in interesting and nuanced ways. 

Making is not the only element of my creative practice, however. As I am a professional librarian, writer, and researcher, I let that carry over into my creative practice. Currently, I am researching the history of handweaving in rural Canada, specifically in the French-speaking province of Québec. I view this research and writing as another way to connect to my ancestral roots, as a way of reclamation and as a way of telling my ancestors’ stories. Though my familial records are not robust – my ancestors were poor farmers, and made do with what they had, so most everything was used until it could not be used any further and therefore not preserved for future use or research – I can research the general practice of handweaving during the times in which my ancestors were alive and practicing their craft, so that I can flesh out an understanding.

I look to explore themes of memory through my craft. What does it mean to remember someone through handcrafts, especially when you have never met the person? What does it mean to trace a line of thread connecting you and your ancestors through space and time? What does it mean to teach yourself the language of your ancestors, because you were never taught it by them?

In my art, I want others to take time to appreciate the value of what we traditionally call “craft” as art in its own right and to see the beauty ever-present in the “practical.” I ask my viewers: What do you take for granted in your own life? Are you able to automatically and instinctually trust your memory? How can you imagine connecting with your own ancestral past?