Tales of Texture: A Handful of Threads, a World of Memory

Sometimes I think I start painting just to feel something real under my hands. Not just the paint — though that’s part of it — but the textures, the stuff of life. Bits of thread, old wool, frayed edges from some forgotten garment, a piece of driftwood picked up on a walk when the sky looked heavy with unspoken things. I don’t go looking for materials with a plan. They find me. Or maybe we find each other.

These paintings — this series — Tales of Texture — they didn’t begin with a concept. They emerged like something buried and pulled gently from the soil, still damp with memory. Every layer is a decision, and a letting go. I never quite know where it’s going. But I know when it feels honest.

There’s something about stitching — about the act of binding things together. It’s slow and intentional. Like healing. The needle moves, and I follow. Sometimes I think I’m sewing parts of myself back into place. Or maybe I’m sewing them loose, giving them freedom to speak. I don’t always understand what they’re saying, but I listen. And then I layer over them again — paint, fabric, more thread — like stories half-told and retold until they find their rhythm. When I paint this way, the whole idea of ‘flat’ disappears. The surface isn’t a surface. It’s skin. It’s memory. It’s the inside of a body turned outward. These works aren’t just meant to be seen. They’re meant to be felt. Not with hands, necessarily (though sometimes I wish that were allowed), but with the eyes, with the body, with something deeper.

People ask me what these pieces mean. I’m not sure that’s the right question. They mean in the way a smell means, or a song with no words. You remember something you didn’t know you forgot. You feel a flicker — grief, warmth, discomfort, longing. That’s enough.

Sometimes I look at one of them after it’s done — if anything is ever really done — and I see a map. Not a place, but a sensation. A geography of silence and sound. I see time embedded in the layers. A moment I lived through, translated into materials.

I use what’s around me. What’s been discarded. What carries a weight or a history. These aren’t just aesthetic choices — they’re instinctual. A bit of twine might remind me of the way my mother ties herbs to dry. A torn shirt might hold a memory I didn’t know I still carried. These things speak. Or they whisper.

And always, I’m listening.

Tales of Texture isn’t really a series. It’s a conversation. With the past, with the present moment, with whoever happens to stand in front of the piece and really look. Sometimes people lean in close. I like that. I want the work to pull you in, to make you curious. What’s under there? What does it feel like? Where does it take you?

That’s the thing — I start with texture, but I end up in feeling. The physical leads to the emotional. And the emotional leads to whatever it is we can't name but we know is there. That’s the real territory I’m mapping.

Most of the works from this series have found homes now — quietly, intuitively, as if they knew where they belonged. A few are still with me, still holding space, still whispering. If one of them speaks to you, I hope you’ll take the time to listen.