Hollywood Tapestry 2006

Lost Drawings

Some drawings from a series based on the television show LOST and its tangential relationship to my life. 2006-07

LOST is a show that resonates with me for many reasons. I have only become interested in it since living in New York and I feel the two have a similar effect on me. Both require an immense amount of patience. Their rewards are not instant but truly investing in them is quite exhilarating. Their mysteries are bound to be revealed but they are both exercises in faith and labors of love. Which leads me to the tapestry. I have spent countless hours carving out a story unique to me from preexisting narratives. Obviously I am not alone in admiration for LOST or New York, but I am trying to create my place into both worlds.

One of the many things that fascinates me about New York is the underlying connections between people. I go about my day with a certain degree of anonymity that is inevitable in such a large place, but sooner or later something disrupts that. Coming from a small town in Texas I never knew a stranger and was always running into people. When I run into someone in New York though it is more like an intervention of fate. When I randomly see a friend, an acquaintance, or (if I'm lucky) a celebrity it is somehow destiny. Why are we on the same subway when we don't live or work anywhere near each other? How of all the streets and all the coffee shops did we end up in the same one? When I notice someone I've never met notice me, and then days later we notice each other again, somewhere entirely different from our first encounter, I get goosebumps. It is these moments that help to affirm my choice to live here, to take this risk. Perhaps it is just a small world, perhaps all those moments are coincidence, or perhaps in the end it will all make sense. LOST and my life are both set on islands

Tex Ritter, John Ritter, White Flash and Me, 2004

blockbuster receipts

Blockbuster Receipts 2005-present
This is an ongoing series of the receipts from the movies I watched while stitching Movie Star Homes.
There are several more to finish.

Movie Star Homes

Movie Star Homes Map 2005
There are a few things that I feel I have always known how to do. Crosstitch, make art, and watch television are three of them. I don’t know which one motivates the others anymore, but rather they all seem to be done concurrently and hold sort of equal fascination. I watched over 200 movies while stitching the map, but I wouldn’t have stitched the map if I didn’t already love movies. I think this bridge of work and love extends to my subjects as well.. It’s as if by doing something repetitively with these people, by knowing where they live, I can have them as a part of my life. My work is concerned with my daily activities, my fantasies and their collision. In stitching the map to the stars’ homes I have personalized an object that millions of tourists purchase. Through countless hours of reproduction I have become intimately familiar with Los Angeles’ famous addresses, landmarks, and productions. There is a literal thread between this place and me.

The Art Universe

The Art Universe, published in Vanity Fair December 2006

I completed stitching this piece June 2008

White Work Quilts

As a child, I assumed (without knowing I was making an assumption) that John Ritter had grown up in my home town. His father, Tex Ritter, was from there and we had a statue of him to prove it. I later realized that John Ritter had been born in Los Angeles. His father had of course left my town on his way to becoming a famous Country/Western singer. Yet, I still feel a bond with both of them based on my youthful ignorance of basic geography. To compound that error, another town in East Texas also claims Tex Ritter,and in a sense, they're right. He's buried there. Recently, I made the long drive from my hometown to his grave. Being there confirmed my sense of connection to the Ritter men despite (or perhaps because of) the questionable facts on which that initial feeling was built. I came back to Brooklyn determined to stitch all those places and all our lives together permanetly.

The white quilts I have made about this connection are based on white quilts from the early 1800's. An American fascination with classical sculpture inspired the production of those quilts even though, much like my work, the inspiration was rooted in a misunderstanding. Greek and Roman statuary was not originally white and John Ritter was not originally from Beckville, Texas. The women who produced those quilts sought validation through a myth and in turn elevated their work from a bedroom to a museum. 200 years later I am conducting my own search through those women and moving my myth from Beckville to Brooklyn one stitch at a time.