Q: Having studied mainly art and art history
during your formal education, how did you
come to develop an interest in science, and
specifically the sciences of the body, as a subject
matter?
A: What is so amazing about being an artist
is that you experience the world through a
different lens, and it can lead you places you
never would have gotten to otherwise. It is still
surprising to me — and I think, to most of my
family — that I make the art that I do. I have
no scientific background (other than the fact
that I am the daughter of a nurse), and still get
a bit faint at the sight of my own blood.
My interest in the body grew out of an
interest in memory and how we are profoundly
influenced by our interactions with others,
carrying those experiences with us, like smells,
sounds, touches, etc. It wasn’t until years later
when a friend recommended a book to me
that would actually confirm
this idea of “body memory,”
called “Faith, Madness,
and Spontaneous Human
Combustion” by Gerald
Callahan. He says:
A: No, it was absolutely an intentional choice.
When I began to focus on the human body and
for a time, the skin, as my subject matter, it
was important that the choice of material and
the subject matter relate to one another. So
the first set of paintings I made that involved
the body were done on vellum, because it
yielded a result reminiscent of a microscopic
slide. And then it struck me that I could sew
into the vellum, treating the surface of the
painting more like skin. Conceptually, the fact
that embroidery would create an orderly surface
with a messy underbelly - just as human skin
acts as a clean surface that contains within it all
the blood and guts of the body - made sense to
me. So I began to sew into my paintings.
Q: Did you have a previous affinity for
embroidery unrel FVBF