About the ArtistAN

I’ve lived in Albuquerque, NM since 2001. I taught yoga in the Oughts, and worked as a psychotherapist in the Teens. I made murals as public art, as branding elements, and as personal expression here in the Twenties, alongside exterior sign painting and gallery art paintings. Through it all I’ve always been interested in building community, healing and growing. 

 

My mom sewed throughout my childhood. Over a lifetime as an artist, she also wove fabrics, made fiber art, and expressed her love for land, plants, and animals through printmaking in serigraphy, collography, and monotypes. I learned so much from her as a child–mostly that I was creative, and that I could pay attention, learn, and make things. I learned that “art” and “craft” are not separate endeavors, and I learned that things to make stuff with are all around us, in the trash and in closets, waiting to be lifted up and worked with again. 

 

In 2013, I got interested in Sashiko and Boro, two clothing repair traditions with a long and thrifty history. I used paint pens to make Sashiko-like drawings and little pretend tapestries on my super-textured paintings. I started sewing in 2019 because I wanted to fix my stuff. The short black pants I’d fallen in love with sported an unusual design, and I loved the way that design worked on my body; when they ripped, I was determined to get them up and running again. 

 

Those black pants, and their gray and tan brethren, began to break more and more frequently, so I got to play with hand-stitching more and more. And as I stitched, I began to entertain dreams of making my own clothes. So fast forward a bit, and I was sewing every evening, learning about the clothes of my ancestors, and experimenting with making things myself. I made medieval men’s underwear; I made 18th-century shirts; I made a frock coat, vests, and hats. I learned a ton and got better at drafting, cutting, and sewing things for myself. 

 

I also returned to an old obsession with fashion in general, and bags in particular. And slowly, this love affair with stitches became a new creative project I called Mendwear, in which I took in thrift store discards, picked out the broken natural fiber stuff for disassembly and upcycling, and looked for ways to use and donate the rest. 

 

I’m still learning a ton, but I now have loads of experience with the repairs I’m offering, alongside a larger context for the place of apparel in our lives and on the planet. 

 

Let’s fix your stuff!