Hunt Residencies IX

My work is a meditation on femininity, womanhood, and the beauty found in growth. Drawing inspiration from the ocean, I explore its connection to the feminine; its beauty, its mystery, its depth, its danger, and its power to give and take life. The ocean is more than a place, it is a presence. Within it, the coral reef emerges as a complex self-sustaining, interdependent community, much like the networks of women who hold families, traditions, and cultures together.

Coral serves as both symbol and material inspiration. Bleached white by environmental stress, it speaks to purity and to damage, how beauty can endure even under duress. In my self-portrait pieces, the color white expresses this duality of innocence and exposure; while India ink is splattered or dyed into the fabric beneath, representing contamination, trauma, or the marks of experience. Still, even in this contrast, the resulting work remains beautiful. This tension, between what’s preserved and what’s damaged, reflects the emotional and generational weight women often carry.

I work primarily with materials rooted in the traditional arts of women: embroidery, beadwork, fabric, and hand-sculpted polymer clay. These techniques are tactile and intimate, requiring patience and intention. The clay is baked, hardened by heat, echoing the domestic rituals of care and transformation that often fall to women. I use fabrics like white denim to reference labor and utility, linen for its historic, organic simplicity, and satin for its connection to ceremonial beauty, such as wedding gowns—each chosen for its symbolic resonance.

My compositions often take the shape of circles or, more recently, spirals. The circle speaks to unity, wholeness, and completion; something eternal, something healing. The spiral charts a path of growth and evolution, expressing my personal journey through memory, relationship, and understanding. These forms grow organically, as does my process itself: sculpting, dyeing, stitching, beading—each layer added through a meditative rhythm. This repetition is intentional and rooted in the experience of women's work in the home; repetitive, steady, often invisible, but essential. Over time, these seemingly mundane acts accumulate into something profound. Women are the constant—the ones who most often sustain the household, and only with distance can we truly see how these daily tasks build a life, a legacy, a quietly powerful beauty.

In this practice, I seek not only to create something beautiful, but to offer a space for reflection; on what it means to endure, to evolve, and to transform.