Overall the choice to make blurry and difficult to read portraits with a pixelated of shifting nature speaks to what we don’t know, can’t know, and what we assume to know about a person. Who we are is never just one thing and is always changing and never stagnant. We shift how we are perceived and judged by others can shift. In the case of unidentified persons, John and Jane Does, or missing persons we place many more assumptions on them than we can realize, we pass judgement on their identities, their life styles, and actions, based on what clues are left behind.

For my pieced fabric portraits I try to stick to rescued and salvaged scraps of fabric for two reason. One simply the use of what is around and is free or low in cost. The other is more reflective of community or society. We are all small pieces of a whole, people’s lives are made up of and touched by fabric from birth to death - swaddling blankets to burial shrouds. Lives are marked by fabric from the mundane day to day to life marking events. Missing and unidentified persons clothing items are often used as tools of identification. “Found wearing . . .” “last seen wearing . . .” We are constantly in contact with fabric. We use it as markers of identity expression, for function, and decoration. Each square of fabric is only a fragmented piece, but combined with other pieces it can make a quilt or quilt like object. Quilts that are used to keep us warm to celebrate or mark moments in our lives. These works show the framework, the seams and the raw edges of each block. The front facing image of my works is traditionally the back of the quilt top that remains hidden and sandwiched between the layers of a finished quilt. Fabrics hold memories, smells, stains, they show wear and use patterns; they become as individual as us.