My bird women first came as a reaction to the Alexander McQueen’s show : “Savage Beauty”, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the summer of 2011. This show did not affect me right at first. I had to go see the show again at the Victoria and Albert in London in 2015. Still not emerging in my work. Not even in my sketches, but that duck wing dress, I could not forget. The incorporation of animal parts in his headdresses and dresses could not escape my mind. I remember my first thought , “ If I wore that I could do anything," like a super woman, a fighter.

Then 2016 happened along with the Trump administration and my world got rocked with constant news blast and mistrust of my government. Watching the rights of my fellow human beings getting stomped on while environmental protections were snuffed out! I needed strength to fight this evil power, and the bird woman emerged from that vision of Alexander McQueen. I kept seeing myself with an added uniform of wings and helmet at the end of my yoga routines when I would envision my younger self staring back at me. These are the pieces that grew from this period of rage. My new characters and plants play and interact within the scenes of the toile and decor fabrics. I’ve used a variety of materials to stitch on, depending of its opaqueness and color. Fabrics range from vintage barkcloth to organic cotton to felt.

This is the most recent series that I have been working on since 2019. I see them growing and evolving even now that Trump is out of office, knowing very well, what he represents and what he has uncovered and brought to the light. I can see me turning myself into a bird woman in the future.

Figures in thread have been a focal point for my work since my first piece “Girl with Bird” in 2014. I was doing figure drawing during an open studio session at Maryland Institute ,College of Art to keep my drawing skills up to snuff. I have always enjoyed drawing the figure and using the female figure as my vehicle of communication. It was only natural for me to challenge myself with stitching the figure on my sewing machine

This series is based on contour line drawings I did of my high school students when I taught in my previous life. These were part of a series of Paintings that I created back in 2005, and were the last series of paintings that I did before transitioning into a fiber artist.

“Watch Children” are my renditions of these paintings. I have played with a variety of bird heads, pattern backgrounds, props and the precious seeds and pollinators needed for our eco system to continue and for their bird lives to thrive. Each piece features freehand machine stitching ,to imitate my ink drawings, a variety of fabrics for texture , overlay and pattern.