These pieces combine diagrams of obsolete technology with the human figure. Diagrams and technical drawings really appeal to me on a basic level for their visual qualities. The diagrams are simplified and layered, taking them out of their original context. These diagrams are specifically referencing steam engines and railroads which featured prominently in the history of both sides of my family. When I was young, I traveled to some of the places my grandparents had lived on now-vanished railways. I can remember seeing the foundations of the houses where the railroad employees had lived and trying to imagine what it must have been like.
I'm also exploring the creative impulse and the drive to make things in these pieces. The variety of ways that people express their creativity is amazing to me. I'm particularly focusing here on the things that women traditionally create - sewing, knitting, gardening. I find it so satisfying to make things and I love that feeling of completion, in addition to then using or wearing the object or giving it to someone else. The figures I'm depicting are intentionally vague and non-specific, as I'm not really interested in an individual person so much as her actions and her creativity.
