Bringing things together that have different histories, is an important aspect of my art-making process. My assemblages and installations are comprised mainly of fabrics from dissected clothing, found objects, and small paintings, all combined in the form of a quilt or dress. I am drawn to colorful printed fabrics because of their visual texture and also because my mother was a dressmaker who died during my childbirth and I want to pay homage to her. My paternal aunt, Violet Ellis, whom I’ve know as mom since birth was a florist, a tradition passed down from her mom and grandmother, which is why I love floral fabrics especially. In addition to this, I’m drawn to the visual and tactile texture of objects that I seek out and to the associations they connote. My introduction to art was through painting and I continually want to push that idea by using the canvas on a framework as a structural element that showcase the objects and the fabric as paint. The dress has become a personal symbol as a container for spirit. The quilt is the multiplicity of the dress because it can be comprised of many dresses and conversely the dress can be comprised of a quilt made from many dresses. They interact on a microscopic-macroscopic view that takes me beyond my personal history.
Like many people of the African Diaspora, my physical ties with the motherhood have been severed abruptly, making it important to reclaim aspects of that memory. This is not only important for us now, but for those yet to come. Symbolically, I see the spaces or niches as containing the lost memories as well as the potential of rediscovery. I use empty frames to represent the formation of rediscovered memories with the content of those memories waiting to be created. When I use a white baby dress or a blank white canvas, it is to reference a young spirit or journey in the physical plane. The dress acts as a container for spirit. The quilt then becomes a collection of the manifestations of many spirits. In my installations, I want to create a full transformed environment in which the viewer feels as though they are in a womb or birth canal…a meditative space. The objects and materials that I use are gathered intuitively and somewhat subconsciously and reconnected in a way that feels instinctively logical today.
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