Public Art: Floral Canopy at Albee Square NYC

Public Art: Floral Canopy at Albee Square NYC

Short Summary: My new installation Floral Canopy transforms native New York plants into hundreds of suspended wire sculptures that create a floating wildflower meadow. In August 2023, just as students and staff prepared to enter their new building for the first time, Floral Canopy was installed in the lobby ceiling of the Albee Square Campus in Brooklyn. This site-specific public artwork represents the culmination of a four-year journey that began in 2019—a project that deepened my understanding of how art can honor place, celebrate local ecology, and create a sense of belonging for the communities that encounter it daily. Floral Canopy is composed of hundreds of hand-shaped, powder-coated steel sculptures painted in vibrant greens, yellows, and oranges that form a floating field of native plants above viewers’ heads. Like three-dimensional drawings, these intricately crafted and gestural wire forms accumulate into a suspended wildflower meadow—shifting perspective and inviting students, teachers, and visitors to look up and discover a garden where they might least expect it. The foundation of this work lies in botanical research and careful observation. I spent considerable time at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Native Flora Garden and the New York Botanical Garden’s Steere Herbarium, examining plant specimens that call New York home. I made dozens of drawing studies of local species including May Apple, Button Bush, Milkweed, and many others—plants that have adapted to this specific climate and soil, plants that have their own stories within this ecosystem. This process of documentation became integral to the artwork itself. By translating scientific observation into artistic interpretation, Floral Canopy demonstrates how different ways of knowing—the scientist’s careful cataloging and the artist’s imaginative rendering—can work in harmony....
Online Course: Embroidery with a sewing machine with Domestika

Online Course: Embroidery with a sewing machine with Domestika

Short Statement: My new Domestika course is now available online! Date: August 2023 In November 2022, I traveled to Madrid, Spain, to film an online course with Domestika. Over the course of a week, I worked with their production team to create a comprehensive guide to starting free-motion embroidery. The course was released in August 2023, and it’s been exciting to see students from around the world discover these techniques. Filming an online course is a different kind of creative challenge than making artwork. Instead of working alone in my studio, I spent the week explaining every step of my process to cameras, breaking down techniques I’ve developed over years into clear, accessible lessons. The Domestika team in Madrid was incredible—professional, supportive, and genuinely interested in understanding the work so they could help communicate it effectively. We filmed everything from setup to finished pieces, capturing close-ups of stitching techniques and wider shots that show how individual elements come together into the larger project. It was an intense week of demonstrating, explaining, and occasionally re-filming to make sure every detail was clear. The course guides students through the entire process of creating embroidered designs using free-motion embroidery techniques on a sewing machine. I start with the fundamentals: gathering materials, creating mood boards, and developing designs inspired by natural elements. Then we move into the technical aspects—setting up the sewing machine for free-motion work, understanding essential stitch patterns, and learning to shade, accent, fill, and outline designs. The beauty of this approach is that it’s accessible to beginners while offering techniques that more experienced sewists might not have explored. I also...