Queer Quilt Making

An Artist Statement

Me! My work!

Every so often I receive a message from someone letting me know that my work would be more beautiful, more easy to enjoy, and likely more lucrative if I separated it from my queer identity. This is homophobia, of course. It is also impossible. There is queerness inherent in all of my work: I have never been anything but a queer artist. It is not restrictive or limiting, but rather an expansive freedom to question and subvert and imagine and dream. I think those things are needed more than ever in our world and walking this path is the very best of what I have to offer. 

Queerness and art making are both creative and expansive exercises in imagination. As a queer person I’ve spent my whole life coming up against norms and expectations that deny the existence of my self. In those situations the only option is to imagine an alternative and live it. My art has helped me do this over and over again. In my early 20’s, when I felt lost or unsure I made comics. Sometimes I would painstakingly record moments from my day to day life and other times I imagined real, fraught situations playing out in kinder ways. These three and four panel comics litter my sketchbooks and read chronologically they show my reality changing ever so slowly into my previously sketched dreams.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve found a place in queer community and that sense of belonging has given me confidence and a sense of direction. I identify as a non-binary lesbian, which is a women-centered identity, meaning I identify and align myself with women's struggles and experiences even though I don’t always identify as a woman.  Being queer is my sexuality, yes, but it is also a culture that I belong to, and that culture has shaped who I am and the art that I make. As I’ve consumed lesbian and queer media over the last 20 years I’ve picked up on certain themes. The ones that resonate most with me are cooperation, liberation, and imagination. Each of those themes informs the work I create, especially my quilts.

Through seeking out women’s stories and listening to the women identified people around me I’ve grown a deep admiration for what has historically been considered women’s work. Paying attention to the experiences of women across the globe has shown me the oppression that goes hand in hand with mass textile and garment production. When I began to source fabric for quilt making I sought out old garments and discarded linens both to keep them out of the landfills and to disengage my work from exploitative textile production. Working with materials that had been discarded gave me the chance to create rituals of craft that addressed my own feelings of rejection in a restorative way. Through these things I add my voice and perspective to the ongoing story of women’s work as told through quilts.