I am a text based artist, working in painting, screen-printing, and fibers in Nashville, Tennessee. I have a MFA from the University of Tennessee and currently teach art at James Lawson 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 scattered 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 and crocheted.
Grandpa George dipped tobacco, and didn’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.
On Sundays it was fire & brimstone, and everybody else but us were going to hell.
Being a “good woman” and submissiveness were ingrained.
I have 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.
