The many, complex, layered realities of my communal ancestry's history and visual archives set forth the foundations of creative purpose in my studio practice and research. A significant part of my research is rooted in quilts from Slavery (chattel enslavement) thru the Antebellum period, made on and off cotton plantations by enslaved and free African Americans through the mid-20th century. These quilts and the material that gives them life, cotton, serve as a historical source and point of departure, I use to explore and comprehend this dreadful time in America's history. These quilts are of particular interest to me for their uniqueness in origin, evolution, aesthetics, visual endurance, range of creative techniques and processes. Also important is the commodity, cotton, from which the textiles are made to make the quilts and what my enslaved ancestors cultivated and picked. Cotton, the commodity at the center of my ancestry, led me to the global history, trade, and impact of cotton through its production to textiles and trade. Encountering the various cultures, economies and time periods connected to cotton continues to take through non-linear timeline journeys from the past to the present. These diverse and inter-connected histories permeate the work I make.

 Quilts from these time periods reveal and preserve the historical blending of aesthetics, emergence of distinct material culture and traditions. The visual and historical synthesis of various craft traditions, historical events and commodities, quilts, the cotton trade, the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, and the vast realm of textiles inform and shape my visual ideas and approach to the spectrum of ceramic materials and mixed media.

 Adaptation, resourcefulness, survival, and triumph are what I appreciate when I consider the fullness of these quilts, their makers, and the history from which they emerge and have moved through time. My work begins with the realities of those who sewed and stitched more than quilts; those who stitched and sewed a resolute history and legacy that has gifted freedom, personhood, and rich visual language to our world. The fullness of this important history I am indebted to has afforded me deep meaning as an artist. I strive to sustain and honor the many gifts of my personal and collective history embedded in my communal ancestry's chronicles.