“Imagine you had lived your whole life without ever speaking a word. Then, one day, suddenly, you could talk. What would you say? Would you whisper? Would you scream? Would you sing? That is what it is like to be a 71 year old, emerging artist. I have so much to say.
The product of a biracial marriage raised in the 1950’s and 60s, I spent my life in the interstices of clashing cultures. My wellbeing depended on my ability to navigate that mix and to define myself in my own terms. The number of bi-racial and multi-racial individuals grows continually, still there is little if any artistic vocabulary that addresses the uniqueness of that point of view.
In my work: Code Switch I show this uniquely bi-racial, African American world view. Code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more language varieties. I use African and other ethnic fabrics, mixed with western fabric (as well as my own hand-dyed fabrics) to show the inter-relationship of the mainstream and marginalized cultures – each referential to the other. I stake a claim on a territory not often used in mainstream art. My images are not African, or Africanized, but feature the colors and patterns of Africa, Aboriginal Australia, and Asia in a unique, blended context.”