This section functions as a repository of material knowledge. Gathered over many years, the tools, baskets, textiles, fibers, books, specimens, and handmade objects found here are valued not as collectibles but as teachers.
I return to these objects repeatedly, studying their structures, proportions, materials, and methods of construction. Within them are generations of accumulated observation, adaptation, and refinement. A basket records a structural solution. A textile preserves information about fiber, labor, and use. A tool carries the intelligence of countless hands that shaped it over time.
Many of the questions that guide my practice begin here. What makes a material feel trustworthy? Why does a particular form endure? How is knowledge transmitted through use rather than instruction? These objects serve as ongoing sources of inquiry, revealing how intelligence becomes embedded within materials and carried forward across generations.
The studio is not where projects are produced. It is where questions accumulate.
Angora from rabbits I raise, resting in a bowl I made. The fiber will be spun by hand into yarn.
The studio functions as a working archive. Objects made, gathered, inherited, exchanged, and studied remain in conversation with one another long after they enter the room.
Weaving beaters used to pack weft into cloth. Different fibers, structures, and hands require different tools. The differences are subtle until they become essential.
Certain forms return repeatedly. Baskets, vessels, boxes, and nests appear across cultures because they answer enduring human questions about carrying, storing, protecting, and belonging.
The studio is less a collection than a conversation. Materials, techniques, and traditions remain in dialogue long after they enter the room.
As the first artist selected by the City of Chicago for a social practice residency, I spent four months transforming the Garland Gallery into a community textile studio. Donated materials, looms, books, and unfinished examples created an environment where participation became a form of learning.
The studio holds materials in different stages of becoming. Some are still gathering energy. Others have already found their form.