I am a text based artist, working in painting, screen-printing, and fibers. I live and work in Nashville, Tennessee. I have an MFA from the University of Tennessee and currently teach Art at Hillwood High School.
Artist Statement
I pretended Boy George was my cousin and daydreamed of being a singer or a dolphin. I loved making ashtrays from mud.
Two lane roads and farmland scatter the landscape. Fake wood paneling and beige walls surrounded me.
Every year my dad came to school to explain stop, drop, and roll and my mom put spam, onions, and Velvetta on toast then called it dinner.
My mom, Debbie did cross stitch and my grandma George sewed curtains and crocheted.
Grandpa George dips tobacco, he doesn’t believe in carbon dating or the dinosaurs.
Papa Wright had skin like leather, smelled like stale cigarettes and manure. He played guitar and sang bass in a gospel band.
Over half of the church were family members, and after church our family ate together.
Fire and brimstone, and everyone else but us are going to hell.
I rode 30 minutes on the bus to go to the county’s only high school.
I got married way too young, divorced too late, and told it didn’t work out because I didn’t submit.
I never felt at home, but I am still here.
Autobiography and the South inform my work. The conversations between text and material, nostalgia and current politics mix, creating conundrums that I play with and try to reconcile.
