About the Artist
Artist Statement
My work reflects on the past, is grounded in the present, and looks toward the future. It grows from my personal history and my deep, lifelong connection to trees.
Many of my ancestors emigrated and settled in their new homes by clearing forests. That inheritance leaves me with a strong sense of responsibility for the forests that remain. Using my training in geography and ongoing learning from current scientific research, I create visual stories to raise awareness of the global loss of forests, with a focus on the Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest where I live. Awareness is the first step toward change. My visual stories raise awareness.
When working with tree-based themes, my work feels grounded, honest, and true to my experience.
I have a strong affinity for the threaded needle, a knowledge of the long, deep history of textiles, and a clear understanding of the role textiles play in daily life. I work with recycled materials that have had previous lives, including domestic linens and worn clothing. I acknowledge the anonymous makers whose skill and labour are already present in these textiles, and I add another layer of meaning and story. I also work with natural fibres, especially wool, which I use as a metaphor for personal identity. Wool is a culturally rich material that connects me to my ancestry, to growing up in New Zealand, and to its role today as a sustainable medium.
At its broadest level, my work speaks to the relationship between humans and the natural world. I focus on the interaction between forests and human activity. The work comes from my personal relationship with the trees I live with and grows from a shared conversation with other environmental artists and scientists who are responding to the same urgent questions.
Biography
She is a textile artist whose work grows from a lifelong relationship with trees and forests. Many years ago, an Indonesian traditional healer advised her, ‘always live surrounded by trees'. At the time, she ignored it. Only later did she understand how deeply true it was.
Born in the temperate rainforest mountains of Aotearoa/New Zealand, she spent her early childhood in deep-forest landscapes. From there, her life unfolded in places shaped by trees—suggesting an unconscious pull toward them long before she was aware of it. Her early education focused on studying the land and learning to teach, followed by years of world travel and new homes in forested regions across the globe, including tropical Pacific Island forests, the equatorial Amazon rainforest, and the forests of Southeast Asia.
It was not until she settled on Vancouver Island, Canada, among the trees of the Pacific Northwest rainforest, that she remembered the healer's words. The feeling of being "at home" made sense. Her childhood experiences had quietly shaped a deep sensitivity to forested landscapes and their presence.
Further education in stitching, knitting techniques, and textile history opened a world that felt deeper, broader, and longer than traditional art history. These learning paths, combined with her lived experiences, gradually narrowed her focus to the fragile future of Earth's once-vast forests.
She works most naturally with a threaded needle using textiles as her primary language for storytelling. The slow, tactile nature of stitched cloth, along with inherited skills passed down through her maternal line, connects her to a shared human understanding of textiles as both visual and sensory memory. For her, stitched fabric is not just material—it is a way of speaking.
Recently, her perspective has expanded to see trees, forests, land, and water as an Earth Mother. This shift is opening a new chapter in her work, offering a rich source of ideas, stories, and future textile explorations rooted in care, connection, and reverence for the living world.
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