To me, my family is the most important; people I can trust and turn to no matter what. As a young adult, I look back now and realize that I don’t believe I truly understood the way they impacted me, or how I truly feel about my family. Two years ago my grandmother passed away. She suffered a stroke about ten years ago which paralyzed her and as a result, her health slowly deteriorated. Thus far, this has been my first and thankfully only experience with death and loss of a loved one. Since that time, my mind and art seems to dwell on the past and my family.
Within this body of work, I explore my relationship with family, looking into the past and present and seeing how they differ, or if they differ at all. I look at how that relationship defines who I am. My work provides a form for creating a narrative of my upbringing through memory and reflection. Our shared past and memories are the physical content stitched together telling the story of who I am. I believe the act and physicality of making a quilt lends itself to realization and discovery. Quilting and embroidery are slow processes, it is impossible not to get lost in your own thoughts, thinking about the images and memories you’re sewing. Through this process, I have come to a new understanding of the people in my life. Forcing myself to bring up past experiences with my family, I gained a greater understanding of the relationships I have with them. Usually we remember just the good from our past, but remembering the bad or challenging incidents, helps gain a fuller picture of ourselves and how we arrive at the individuals we are today. To me the process and the point of discovery is equally as important as the physical object.
