Exhibitions > Return: Prints and Stitched Works

Artist Statement

Some good things are meant to be sustained. They are reliable and everyday, sometimes even mundane, but solid.

Some good things are ephemeral. The magic is brief and appears before you like some rare flower unfolding, its scent light and fleeting. Those things are meant to wake you up, open you up, swing wide the door. So you can wonder again. So you can see from a new direction.

You need both kinds - a grounded good and a passing-through good. This show is about a passing-through kind - a place I had once dreamed of settling into permanently, but have since only returned to in memory.

One summer six years ago, I visited a small town in Northern New Mexico called Arroyo Seco. There, I fell in love in so many ways. Earlier that spring, I had made plans to move from where I was living in upstate New York to Portland, Oregon by myself. My friend Jada from California convinced me to come visit New Mexico along with some of her friends. We would be able to stay in a hostel for free in exchange for doing the housekeeping. Her voice on the phone, drunk with excitement, promised a wonderful adventure. I booked a flight to New Mexico for two weeks, after which I would fly directly to Portland to live.

I was in a state where I had nothing to lose because I had yet to begin. Maybe that's part of why the trip affected me in such a profound way. I was empty, ready to go with my heart.