Every piece starts as a painting. Acrylic on fabric, on watercolor paper, sometimes directly onto an old photograph — a bouquet in a hand-painted pot, a woman with flowers in her hair, an animal with a bit of a story in its face. Then I pick up a needle.

The stitching is what turns a painting into something you want to touch. Thread over paint, layer on layer, until the petals have some weight to them and the hair has texture and the whole piece sits somewhere between a picture and a small textile. I love creating pieces that have lots of texture. I love creating something that has a vintage feel — a little worn-in, a little old world, the way a thing looks when it’s lived in a house for fifty years and been loved the whole time.

It takes a long time. A small piece can be many evenings of stitching; the larger ones stretch out over weeks. That isn’t a complaint, it’s just how it’s made — and it’s most of what you’re looking at when you look at a price. Every piece is one of one. There is no second version of anything here.

Most of my work is framed in ornate or vintage frames that I find and choose one at a time, so the frame belongs to the painting rather than just holding it in place.

A Little About Me

During one of the hardest chapters of my life, hand embroidery gave me something steady to hold onto. I was drawn to the tactile, slow process of hand stitching and discovered layering embroidery over my painted surfaces created a dimensional depth that became central to my work.

My work is currently carried at CCA Gallery on Main Street in Carmel, IN.