Shore Fragments

Shore Fragments unites visual responses to the “marginal space” (in Rachel Carson’s coinage) right in front of our house. The common denominator of these works is their building on my photography, whether capturing reflections in the water or traces in the sand. Shore Fragments also serve as a laboratory to explore new ways in which to integrate photography into my fiber art.

Shore Fragments: Repair

16 x 20 x 0.75 inches

Sometimes, stitching leads to reflection and repair—I had on my table the remnants of a previous project called “Shore Fragments,” dedicated to the shores of the Albemarle Sound. The fragments were painted and printed with earth pigments. I also had a piece of fabric on which I had rubbed the bark of a dying live oak on the shore in front of our house. I thought about the remnants of nature after humans build houses, living on the shore, and I felt moved simply to layer them and to try some form of repair by stitching them tightly into a new cloth in a quilt sandwich. It leaves me wondering, however, whether the idea of reparative stitch might not be (in) vain, and whether the remnants are—in the end—all we leave behind.

Shore Fragment: Winter Morning

16 x 16 x 0.75 inches

Even on a foggy winter morning, the signs of renewal abound at the Albemarle Shore. With the horizon shrouded in fog, the grasses begin their fresh growth and mark their resilience from the water which—even in the mist—sparkles delightfully.

Shore Fragments: Spring

28 x 22 x 0.75 inches

Spring is a time of renewal when—on the shores of the Albemarle Sound—grasses return with their glorious green, even when the waters are still murky and grey. This quilt captures this moment of transition and regeneration which happens in front of a live oak slowly dying from the rising sea waters, the bark of which is present in the rubbing I took and integrated in the background.

Shore Fragments: A Fiber Book

8 x 60 inches

By visually fragmenting the photographic images I took of the shore in front of our house at the Albemarle Sound, a fragile yet beautiful ecosystem at the U.S. Atlantic coast, I try to capture simultaneously its beauty and precariousness. The book offers a kaleidoscope of its colors, flora, and fauna. It also reworks previous use of materials (printing with soy-based pigments, use of stitch, layering of different fabrics and other materials) through the lens of the new processes I have encountered in this course. In this sense, fragmentation becomes a transformative crucible generating new visual and technical pathways to capture this unique environment artistically.