Make. Dye. Mend.

I teach fiber arts.

I teach sustainability.

My studio is deeply rooted in sustainability. My fiber arts practice reflects my early environmentalist training and lifelong passion. I teach fiber arts from my reverence for the land, personal handcraft heritage, decades of arts experience, and a deep desire to connect with people and the planet.

MENDING.

I teach mending through hand-stitching with patches, needle, and thread. I focus on visible mending or highlighting repair as a way to redesign by embellishing, illuminating, or adding value. I’m mostly self-taught as a fiber artist but draw on my maternal lineage for my mother’s needle crafts and great-grandmother’s quilts. My mending focuses on basic techniques combined with the elements of design to prioritize utility but honor beauty and handwork.

NATURAL DYES.

I work with whole-plant dyes—meaning I prefer to work with plants I grow in my garden, forage from my local environment, or save as food scraps from my kitchen. My dyeing is rooted in a local, seasonal, land-based approach but I also purchase select historic dyes like indigo and madder root. Mostly, I teach dyeing from a locavore perspective—aiming to create natural color based on the living plants in my region, garden, kitchen, and local farms to create unique, place-based color.

CREATIVE PRACTICE.

Art requires structure, systems, and good habits like any other work. But sometimes we have to get really clear on our biggest art dreams before we can move into sustained action. In this class, I lead artists of various mediums and experiences through my 8-step process for making art in a full, busy, imperfect life. I lead writing, visioning, and reflection exercises to help unearth the work that could shift habits. And then I offer a very focused system to make the dreams realized. And, it’s a lot of fun.