Tweedful Things
Fiber/Textiles
My work is rooted in early American folk traditions, particularly the visual language of PA German and Early American decorative arts. I create hand hooked wool rugs inspired by historic fraktur, redware pottery, antique rugs, and other objects of everyday use that once carried beauty, symbolism, and meaning into ordinary life. Working with 100% wool that I hand dye, I use a primitive rug hook and a puritan lap frame to create my art. This medium, humble, durable, and tied to domestic labor, feels inseparable from the imagery I choose. Birds, tulips, rabbits, and simple geometric forms appear in my work as a visual vocabulary. These motifs historically spoke of love, faith, fertility, protection, and belonging. I am interested in how they can still quietly speak today. Color plays a central role in my process. I favor palettes that feel aged and restrained-faded reds, soft ochres, walnut browns, flax, indigo, and ghosted greens-referencing 18th and 19th century dyes and the way time softens objects through use. I intentionally avoid polish or perfection, allowing irregularity, wear, and restraint to suggest history rather than imitate it.
While my rugs are informed by museum study and historical research, they are made to be lived with. I think of them as contemporary objects of use-functional textiles that carry forward the spirit of early American making. Through my work, I hope to honor the quiet intelligence of folk art and the enduring human desire to surround daily life with meaning.