Statement

I make art that is meant to be worn. By making such art and wearing it, the female identifying body is at stake in the narrative. Clothing is an extension of the self. 
We divulge our alliances and personal history through what we choose to wear. 
It is poetry in public, to carefully select and reflect how we want to be perceived and understood in the world.

Garments function as a layer of protection for the wearer, while signaling the wearer’s self-identification. They wrap around our vulnerable bodies, shielding us, and making disclosures to an audience of fellow players. 
The struggle to feel safe in one’s own body is of the utmost concern. The theme of physical protection from a pursuant is a common one, and understood on a deeply personal level. This is the livery of a war cry.

I am slowly constructing a body of work meant to hold me and tell my story as I move through the world. In a recent series, patterns of flora and fauna (two extremely common tropes in fashion) are employed. I hope to convey the natural outgrowth, the organic and changing methods of survival necessary to keep a vulnerable body safe from predators. A frilly lace collar, crocheted to form a “pepper spray” of capsaicin flowers, protects the wearer in a seemingly frivolous mist. Biological mimicry, a phenomenon characterized by the superficial resemblance of two or more organisms that are not closely related, solidifies and sanctifies the cross-species bond of a loved one who has passed. Human teeth marks, used as posthumous identification are also in service of a mode of defense and signal a warning, “Don’t come too close.”

This is a mode of magical realism, where I can construct and attempt to beautify my own forms of self- defense.