As a fiber artist, I blend fine craftsmanship with fine arts expressiveness. The overarching theme of my creative expression has always included an appreciation of cultural iconography, motifs and symbols; from pictographic to architectural and surface design decorative elements. Many of the paper based materials used for hand bound book arts originate from Asia's rich symbolic textile / fiber arts history. This includes durable archival papers such as eco-friendly handmade Nepalese Lokta fiber as well as Kozo / Paper Mulberry fiber used in traditional Japanese Yuzen and Katazome Shi Decorative Printing Arts. An exploration of traditional Asian motifs and symbols evolved and grew out of my experience as a docent at an Asian focused Art Museum. This further inspired and informed my shop's focus on the creation of fine preservation, hand bound archival and heirloom quality book arts. Imbuing each album or journal book with significant historic and symbolic meaning from cover to customer content, for each unique story to be memorably retold.

As a weaver, I use color, texture and pictographic symbols as a means to tell a story and recount the important people, events, and happenings in my life. Typically, I have plenty of source work for inspiration. Though I will spend considerable time piecing together and refining a cohesive rendering of a person thru these woven storyboards. The message should inspire a simply meaningful and true snapshot of the subject in the mind's eye, much as cave drawings and paintings accomplished for early man. Surface design and textural elements further impart a depth and history in the telling of each story. Surface design elements can be as varied as sliced ribbons of pen and ink embellished clear acrylic sheeting, antique grosgrain to modern metallic ribbons, rayon and metallic threads; all presented on a diaphanous backing of silk gossamer.

This pictographic portrait weaving tells my father's story. The central mandala might be meaningful to a small minority of science and math geeks. Likely an anachronism, from my father's "greatest generation". He simply described this as a circular slide rule representing all numbers real and imagined, positive and negative. His universe per se. I was about eight years of age when he explained this while showing me a printed image littered with numbers on an aged thin page of onion skin paper. This image burbled to the surface of my recollection as the central theme of his story, some thirty years later as I conceptualized this weaving.

Somehow, I kept and then rediscovered this original page from long ago. Stolen memories of dodging painful long division math problems as typical ambling deviations in his best-intentioned attempts at homework assistance. You can imagine my father's delight and surprise upon unrolling the weaving on the floor as it unveiled the mandala, paired with the original and now anciently yellowed onion skin page. He had not remembered sharing this with me; had not recalled having imparted something as important about himself in the day-to-day grind. He couldn't have known, thru my glazed eye look, that it was more an intriguingly beautiful symbol to me than mathematical construct.

Our relationship wove together in ways neither of us could have known or appreciated, two years prior to his passing. In that moment, despite the barriers of our far afield flung interests, we created a newfound tabula rasa. Enduring in my life you have been dad, like mirrors reflecting mirrors over time into infinity. Grateful that we looked each other eye to eye, saw each other, made our peace; respected, loved and learned from each other. A story worthy of the telling with chapters yet to discover and unfold.