It is very important to me to begin with a concept of what I would like to say, and then work through trials of techniques to find the one that conveys it best. In this case, my hope was to create an environment that would encourage the viewer to get caught up in ‘the other’. To help the viewer learn a bit into our shared world by creating curiosity and an emotional connection. I was preoccupied with an African saying I discovered from the Ubuntu people; “I am because you are. Our humanity binds us”.
I believe that the future of the human community lies in our ability to create and grow emotional bridges across cultural boundaries. For over 30 years, I had the privilege of listening to intimate personal stories of human struggles and despair. Everyone is wrestling with issues of identity. It is my feeling that our common humanity can bind us as we search for the answers to identity and meaning.
Although this body of work is not technically one of quilts, I do believe that years of belonging to a quilting guild and attending quilting technique workshops informed my work. Too, my explorations in plastics, wood, silver, ceramics, helped me develop new ideas about how different medias respond to touch, and find their form. I would encourage any aspiring creative person to explore as many different mediums as possible. Each exploration will inform the process. For this body of work I was influenced by a ceramicist; Susan Low-Beer. Her work is stunning. I was particularly struck by her figurative series, where she sliced elements and then re-positioned them back together, creating tensions in the joining of the forms.