About
I am a creative dabbler in fibre and fine arts. As a textile enthusiast, I have experimented in various fibre crafts over the past decade, including spinning, knitting, felting, sewing, quilting, and weaving. Getting my hands into something concrete has been a key way for me to balance the heady world of academia, which was my life for many years. Recently, I have also returned to my creative roots in the fine arts, exploring the relationship between the natural and human world, as well as the complexities of embodiment, through acrylic and mixed media.
In my fibre and fine arts, I unite self-expression with social and environmental advocacy, focusing on beauty (art for its own sake) and purpose (art for the sake of a cause). In my creative process, I often find myself asking: What can art do in the world? Does it have ethical as well as aesthetic capacity? How can artists stimulate awareness, deeper thought, and positive action without losing creative integrity or sliding into sloganism?
I have long been interested in this relationship between ethics and aesthetics. Trained and employed as an English professor, I specialized in autobiography studies and taught ethics and social justice courses alongside literature and writing. A few years ago, I had to step down from my academic post due to a debilitating chronic illness. Since then, I have used my limited energy to continue exploring the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, but in a concrete way – at an easel and sewing machine – rather than in a philosophical or literary one.
