Artist's Statement

I have been working with the sculptural possibilities of handmade papers for over 20 years and have always been intrigued with the notion that these papers are assumed to be fragile and weak. I began my exploration using high shrinkage fibers and welded steel rod armatures, but in the last several years have switched to creating wearable art out of handmade paper (and also creating non wearable sculptural pieces based on the wearable garment). Asian fibers, in particular Kozo, are an obvious choice for me. The large sheets I make are fairly thin, yet strong and fluid, much like a woven textile, and can be easily manipulated with dye using Shibori and Joomchi techniques.