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About MeI'm re-claiming indigenous cultural plant dyeing one vat at a time as a creator of unique dyed embellishments for your body and home. Fabrics include natural cotton, linen, hemp, rayon and silk. I am a writer, visual storyteller, dreamer, working traveler, Pow Wow dancer, sharing maker of objects -- dyeing cloth and stitching on the Coastal Plains and Outer Banks of Eastern North Carolina. Mixed blood Algonquin Native American descendant from Toisnot Tuscarora and Seminole bloodlines.
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Links to My CV: Professional Summary | Education | Computer Skills | Grants & Awards | Teaching Experience | Presentations & Workshops | Shows & Exhibitions | International Experiences | Memberships & Professional Affiliations
About
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The Fibershed is a working studio that seeks to bring back an Algonquin natural dye garden to reconnect with the Algonquin history of the land in Coastal Carolina. It comes out of promises made to my mother and two grandmothers to tell our stories of survival, love and lost while dyeing cloth and stitching. We are the children of the remnant of the Tuscarora Confederacy known as The Gatekeepers. We remained on the land so that others could escape. We survived by hiding out in plain sight after Fort Neyuheru:'ke, near present day Snow Hill, was burned to the ground at the end of the Tuscarora Wars in 1713.
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My History
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I'm a Teaching Artist from a family of teachers and women who loved sewing, quilting, dyeing cloth, rug twining, embroidery and crochet. I grew up in a multi-generational home where handmade was a way of life. I earned a BFA degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Studio Art with concentrations in Ceramic Sculpture and Painting. I have additional educational experiences at East Carolina University in Ceramics, Painting, Art Education and Textiles and graduate work at Western Carolina University and Penland School of Crafts. My teaching experiences include K-12, community college and university. I received a 2017 Summer Certificate of Completion for The Natural Dye Studio from Penland School of Crafts. The two-week class was taught by Charllotte and Sophena Kwon, renowned worldwide for reconnecting indigenous cultures with natural dyeing. They also own Maiwa, a leading source of natural dyestuffs.
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Indigenous Fashion
I'm back to stitching to honor a promise to my dying mother to share the stories of my many mothers while dyeing cloth, quilting and embroidery. In the last two years of my mother's life, she and I made bundles for dyeing cloth and recounted all her memories of natural dyeing with her mother and grandmother. "Making color on cloth," she told me describes the women in our family. Over and over Momma repeated that "dyeing fabric, sewing blankets and embellishing them with embroidery communicated our feelings, our struggles, our ups and downs, our joys, our sorrows, our loves and our broken hearts." My mother was proud of me as an artist, but this was the first and only time she asked me to use my creative hands for a specific purpose. So, I'm back where I was 50 years ago, living in the house and sleeping in the bed where I grew up, creating color on cloth using indigo, madder and marigolds, sewing indigenous fashion, dancing blankets and embellishing them with embroidery and beads. Fashion is a language and indigenous fashion is healing the wounds of 300 years of being a stranger on the land of my ancestors.
My quilting process is improvisational accidental piecing which is based on indigenous rural agricultural traditions of making color with flowers, nuts and plants and using any and all available fibers. I create quilt tops using hand dyed or over-dyed cotton fabric because according to my great-grandfather, it make the cloth sacred by connecting me with my ancestors. Indigo is the dominate color in my dye practice and represents 1) the waters of the Pamlico and Atlantic Ocean surrounding the Outer Banks; 2) the ever changing Carolina blue sky that still manages to take my breath away by its brilliance; and 3) The Blues and growing up on The Blues Trial in Eastern North Carolina One of my grandmothers told me a truth that sums up life, "You Don't Know What Love Is Until You Know The Meaning Of The Blues." I grew up in a musical family, where singing and piano playing was gospel and the Blues depending on the day of the week.
My quilting process is improvisational accidental piecing which is based on indigenous rural agricultural traditions of making color with flowers, nuts and plants and using any and all available fibers. I create quilt tops using hand dyed or over-dyed cotton fabric because according to my great-grandfather, it make the cloth sacred by connecting me with my ancestors. Indigo is the dominate color in my dye practice and represents 1) the waters of the Pamlico and Atlantic Ocean surrounding the Outer Banks; 2) the ever changing Carolina blue sky that still manages to take my breath away by its brilliance; and 3) The Blues and growing up on The Blues Trial in Eastern North Carolina One of my grandmothers told me a truth that sums up life, "You Don't Know What Love Is Until You Know The Meaning Of The Blues." I grew up in a musical family, where singing and piano playing was gospel and the Blues depending on the day of the week.
