Making a textile is a kind of magic. Early in life at home I learned sewing, knitting, crocheting, embroidering, and quilting. Those experiences planted the seeds that have grown into my passion for making textiles by hand and my understanding of the powerful combination of materials, techniques, skill, craft, imagination, and spirit. I make textiles because I love the rhythm of repetition and pattern, complex color contrasts, textured relief surfaces, and the feel of the materials in my hand. I savor the slow meditation of making as an antidote to life’s rush and bustle. I choose simple, natural materials for their honest liveliness. I avoid trends to search for an enduring aesthetic. While the ideas are mine, the work is not about me. I prefer images and concepts that transcend the personal to touch universal human themes. Fabric work has become as natural for me as breathing, and its expressions a “language” often more eloquent than speech. I usually create multiple works in a series to explore and speak more comprehensively ideas. I sometimes use the contrast of panels in a single piece to allow the viewer multiple simultaneous glimpses: close views next to distant ones. Recent works make reference to books or codices, with layers of marks, texts, and symbols that suggest time, memory, and the vagaries of human communication. I’ve taken my stitching on the road to capture impressions of places on my travels, then turned the same attention to the places I love in and around my own home. My approach allows me to work with a wide variety both new and found materials, as well as a broad range of textiles techniques, including hand and machine stitching, dyeing, rusting, drawing, and digital printing on fabric. It is the balance among different technologies, both hand and digital, that makes my current working process satisfying—and still magical.