I photograph, knit, draw and study the Japanese way of tea. Each of these practices and my degree in philosophy informs my art making, which includes an expertise in architectural photography. I’m obsessed with process, documentation and gestures.
Early in my career, I honed techniques in photo editing at Magnum Photos and Newsweek and in reporting/writing at the magazine and a myriad of other publications.
Since the mid-'90s, I have used my skills to document cultures in built environments and call this method archi-ethnography.
My approach breaks habits of one-point perspectives, literally and figuratively, and relies on my interpretation of the interplay of ambient light, design and movement. I seek angles that explore planar vantage points that reveal the true dynamic of people interacting with each other and the unseen energies of spaces and places.
Like with all of my practices, serendipity leads the narrative. My attunement to this rigor of chance relies on a daily practice of meditation, movement and being liminal.
Each project is unique, providing its own set of rules. I champion the one-off.
My process begins with a meditation. When it's time, I use needles and yarn to knit the streams of my thoughts and feelings. At points throughout, I form the knitted panels into spaces and shapes. The yarn retains its shape, because it has a stainless steel core, which is covered with silk. I document these spaces with my camera and produce an accompanying portfolio of 17" x 22" prints.
Caste commissioned this triptych of knitted sculptures to festoon patinated steel cylinder lamps designed by Ty Best. These sculptures and accompanying photographic studies were at Caste, run by Brad Rowley.
This series was influenced by a collaboration with a group of women artists, architects, designers, historians, knitters and my mom. We call ourselves Knit One Then What. The group was founded by Robin Richman, Annie Pedret, Julie Flohr and me. Pedret became obsessed with knitting in the summer of 2008, and I invited her to knit an installation to be shown in my gallery, In Process. It would be the closing show. Rather than knit it all herself, we inducted the labor and creativity of 20 women who flowed in and out of our Sunday meetings as our interests and schedules allowed. Our backgrounds in recording history and documentation lead to an archive of the meetings and our process in photographs and mind maps. I have since gone on to apply this practice to the Mindscrims™.
