Cities

Cities fascinate me in their ability to reveal and to conceal. In the their unique organic configurations they reveal specific communal energies and historic purpose. There is splendor in their growth patterns, the ingenuity of their planing and their structures. My city vignettes look at this splendor.

​Measuring between 4”x4” and 4”x6”, they are constructed of copper foil, wrapped and crochet copper wire, black yarn, beads and rhine stones.
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Berlin, lithograph, 28" x 28"

• But cities can also conceal.


• ​After WWII  larger German cities​
• constructed rubble hills (“Schuttberge”),
• mounds that buried the debris of the war. It
• always rang with a macabre note to me that
• many of these hills have become beautiful
• city parks often without any reminders of
• their remnants of tragedy beneath
• them. My hair quilts address this concealing
• process that manages to look good
• (decorative/pattern) but can’t quite hide the
• fact that they are made of skin-like
• handmade paper and human hair, parts of
• the body that still carries the DNA of a
• person. I am thinking of skin here more like
• a membrane that serves as a cover and like
• a blanket can protect from recent historic
• events but can also hide it’s evidence.


• The hair quilt “Berlin II” is the size of a regular
• bed quilt and was made of 12 pieces of
• handmade Abaca paper with embedded
• hair stitched together with red yarn.
• Portions of the Berlin map are printed on
• each section with information about each of
• the city's nine rubble hills printed on the intersections between four panels.

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​"Chicago", colored markers, 25" x 30"