Experimental and Re-use Garment construction and textile working.

Teaching and sharing experimental garment construction and textile working techniques is such a joy for me because it’s opportunity to not only work directly with our hands and physical materials, which is harder and harder to come by these days, but also because it’s constantly an experience of revealing and discovering new ways of seeing and making. Teaching something like garment construction in a really direct and hands-on way (meaning we don’t focus on the perfection of a pattern) is an opportunity for me to pass on a skill that is  empowering because making one’s own clothing is lifeskill that helps us slowly divest from our automatic consumerism. Garment construction and textile experimentation is also so empowering because it helps one confront these questions and to work with building their own personal style as opposed to following the demands of fashion. Making ones own clothing is stepping into a beautiful and somewhat forgotten lineage of autonomy and I just get pretty passionate about that.

I began sewing as a very little girl watching my grandmother who was very passionate about making things; she was beading jewelry and making very ornate outfits for my dolls and that was really inspiring to me. I loved being in her sewing room and making things with fabric next to her. When I first started making art in a more contemporary context studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then The School of Fine Arts in Marseille, France, I began making costumes that I would display on the wall as figures that would tell stories. Through several years of living in France I became really interested in speaking about American history and the tradition of patchworking and speaking in code through quilting. Since then I have been making my own clothing from the perspective of a sculptor, in an extremely intuitive way I have been slowly learning and teaching myself how to construct garments not necessarily from patterns but from looking at clothing as 3-dimensional drawings in a sense. I’ll take a piece of clothing that I already wear and that fits my body in a way that I feel comfortable and I look at the way it was cut and then I try to duplicate that. I don’t think of it as a perfect equation that I’m trying to fit together, I simply look at it as a sculpture and a creative challenge to figure out how to attach or collage pieces together.

I stay engaged in my craft by going to my sewing studio as much as possible- I create from the philosophy of quantity over quality, meaning to make as much as possible in order to have a higher chance of making something I’m proud of. I make my own clothing from recycling older pieces that I no longer want, finding materials in thrift stores, using donations, or simply cutting up pieces of fabric and reassembling them intuitively. I have various projects going at once and at all times so there are always wheels turning.

I am engaged in a local remake community where I vend my work and observe what other friends are making. I also stay active going to shows to see textile and fiber artist such as the contemporary craft museum, as well as consistently looking at more traditional methods of quilting- I actually tend to research a lot to see what various approaches other artists have done because sewing is a vast world and it’s easy to get happily swept away in it.

I really like to focus on getting to know my students. It’s really important to me that we don’t only get down to rules and technique because my intentions as a teacher are not to push people into being perfect makers or crafters, but rather to assist students in the exploration of their own authentic discovery of their craft. I am not necessarily teaching a student to learn how I make something, but I am rather offering guidance on how I might do it while leaving more space for the student to figure out how they might like to do it. Therefore, we work through a lot of experimentation as well as talking about and researching other approaches and ideas behind creations. Oftentimes we think we’re taking a class because we want to learn a technique, but I try to offer a space that reminds us that we also take classes because the experience of learning is enjoyable.

I hope to create a feel good experience for my students through my lighthearted and joyful approach- I genuinely believe in people and I know that our culture and society tend to make things seem like there is a “right way,” but I constantly try to keep compassion in the forefront. Trying to learn something new like a new craft involves an enormous amount of vulnerability because we have to be beginners at some point and we’re often quite hard on ourselves because we don’t know if we’re actually improving- we can’t measure ourselves very easily while we’re in process so it’s hard to see if we’re doing it right or not. I know this feeling all too well and whether or not you’re making mistakes, if you’re trying and you’re showing up I’m the one mirroring back and cheering you through the process of becoming. Keeping in mind what it takes to show up I am genuinely so excited for my students and I feel that that shines through.

Wandering and being out in the world keep me incredibly inspired- like everyone else who lives in LA, I can spend a lot of car time in the car going from point a to point b, but one of the activities that centers me the most and brings new, fresh ideas is walking without a destination and just observing the world around me. But, I also am constantly re-reminded that being in nature, traveling, reading and looking at art almost always open my mind.