As a fiber artist and illustrator, I specialize in needle-felted sculpture and traditional needle crafts. Combining my extensive background as a children’s media specialist and graphic designer, my work is intended to blur the line between “illustration” and “art object”. Drawing inspiration from the noticeable absence of uninhibited, childlike wonder most carry with them into adulthood, my work approaches the craft with humor, joy, and childlike whimsy. By utilizing bold shapes and vibrant colors, I create expressive, seemingly living creatures who inhabit a world much like our own, only on a much smaller-scale.

Combining my narrative background with traditional textile techniques, I have created a unique body of illustration work that is both tactile and graphic. The craft of needle-felting is simple, but notoriously tedious. In order to “sculpt”, the artist must repeatedly poke a barbed needle into loose wool fibres. With each poke of the needle, these fibres are slowly woven together. One poke at a time, a three-dimensional object is formed. 

As long as humans have been telling stories in the world, they’ve relied on practical effects. Skilled artisans throughout time have been building tactile, handcrafted objects in order to better tell larger-than-life stories. Painted backdrops in the theatre convince theatre-patrons they’re in a long-forgotten castle. Gloopy red Jell-o reads to horror-movie lovers as frightening viscera. Practical, tangible, human additions to storytelling do not detract from the stories being told. With these crafted additions, viewers are subconsciously invited to suspend their disbelief. They allow a viewer to briefly experience the world as a magical one. The consumption and enjoyment of media has been, throughout time, a collaborative experience. In tandem with the viewers, physical crafts are integral to storytelling, with the artist’s hand playing a crucial role in the creation of wonder.

With the emergence of computers and digital effects, the magic of practical effects has been entirely replaced. Viewers are no longer asked to suspend their disbelief. They are no longer asked to actively participate in storytelling. Movies have been scrubbed of the artist’s hand, and the result is a deliberately homogenous, almost uncanny sheen of hyper-realism.

With my body of work, I invite the audience to once again suspend their disbelief; to be an active participant in storytelling. Using materials where the artist’s hand is obvious, where slowness and patience are vital to their construction, viewers are encouraged to consider not only the materials used to tell stories, but what is lost when we close ourselves off to curiosity and play.