ARTIST STATEMENT
The work is what counts. To do it no matter what. It is an
exercise in courage: to start cold/blind in the dark;
yield to a vague impulse, an inkling; trust the cut into
something whole and beautiful; risk its destruction, its loss
of integrity; to hope.
As a child in the 1940’s, I played
with the scraps on my grandmother’s kitchen floor.
A Hungarian seamstress, she fashioned ball gowns and
cocktail dresses for doctors’ wives. Her pantry was
stocked with satins and silks, taffeta and tulle, fine laces
from Belgium. Across her dining table she unrolled wide
bolts of fabric, pinned down paper patterns, carefully cut out
shapes dictated by the printed instructions. I collected
what fell away, saved the scraps, sorted them, fingered them,
loved them. They were all that was left after the intended
shapes disappeared, going off to do their dance or make small
talk or turn heads while strolling down Madison Avenue.
It seemed to me scraps wanted a life too.
So I made art out of scraps, ruled by an
unconsious belief that only if one knew shapes predictable and
named, dare one sever a cloth whole and integral. To do
otherwise was to ruin the cloth. My grandmother knew
these shapes and expertly cut them. I could only rescue
scraps.
Then the aha! moment. What if I cut
shapes freely, with no recognizable form, pieces that looked
like scraps but were intentionally made? Rather than
be‹ing cast-offs, “negative space,”
they would hold positive form. I could wield
scissors with purpose and intent; my “rules,” the
impulses arising inside me. No longer
“saving,” I would create.
I used to work in two ways. I might
draw a design on freezer paper and use it as a template.
Or else I might work intuitively using
“found” pieces from my scrap bags. Now I
work a third way. With scissors in hand, I
approach wide swaths of fabric—hand dyes, cottons I have
painted or discharged, commercial prints, expensive silks and
organza. Closing my eyes, I cut. Sometimes I rip,
attending to the sound of fabric tearing. Then with my
iPod on shuffle, I lay down a piece of black fabric, and I
begin the work.