Protection/Pollution

From the Artist: As an artist working from a home studio, the pandemic didn’t dramatically change my routine but it did change my direction. Handwoven jewelry and ceramics, my focus for years, suddenly felt irrelevant. My studio-turned-sewing-room, churned out hundreds of face masks from a decades old fabric stash. I initially donated masks, then sold them to raise funds for restaurants providing food to healthcare workers.

When demand slowed, still unable to return to work as usual, I dug up an old sketchbook and started drawing. It had been many years. My first drawing was a mask as I was not only spending my days making them but finding them everywhere, littering the paths of daily walks and creating a growing environmental health hazard.

I began documenting the scattered PPE mid-December when nearly 300,000 people had died of covid in this country; 10 weeks later we’ve surpassed 500,000 deaths in the US and close to 2 1/2 million worldwide. Each of the photographs in this composite represent 1,000 lives lost in the US or close to 5,000 globally; it remains a work in progress.

Another source of inspiration was triggered by the rationing of toilet paper and other household items. It made me reexamine the waste my household was producing and improve my recycling habits. I began upcycling household trash and weaving consumer waste into environmentally conscious textiles. The process and materials in this collection of works differ, but the mission is the same; to raise awareness and inspire change.