my body is morning light

iv. the art i make

my body is morning light is a collection of naturally dyed textile pieces. the cloth is lightweight, sheer organic cotton; it was grown, spun, and woven in India and sourced from Maiwa. the colors are from dye plants grown by me over the 2024 and 2025 growing seasons at empowered flowers farm in canby, oregon. to create imagery on the textiles, i used the circle as my mark-making language. all of the marks on the textiles were made by hand, one by one. this was done through a combination of 1) hand-tying circular resist knots using thread, 2) hand-stitching runs of resist using thread, and 3) hand-painting circular marks using mordant pastes. tonal and color variation across single pieces was accomplished by layering these techniques as they moved through multiple dye baths.

this collection has been installed at Stelo Arts in portland, oregon from april 18-may 10, 2026. the textiles are suspended from the ceiling, hung about the gallery so viewers may move around the pieces and experience a quality of light through them. as viewers pass through the exhibition, the textiles respond freely to the movement of air; the space is visibly breathing. at the end of the installation is a projection of a sunrise. the film features a piece from the collection suspended in a field at empowered flowers farm. it is the same place where the color for this collection was grown, the same place where awareness is practiced season after season, and the same place where i continue coming to know my body is morning light.

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this installation is a visual representation of my practice of repetition. i intentionally returned to the act of making a single mark by hand, over and over. i became this act, allowing my thoughts to speak in the language of my body, which defined the imagery that took form on the textile. if i am the act itself, then the art i make is a story about me, the me that is bigger than the body that contains me. over the course of this project, i became the possibility the act contained as my relationships to material, meaning, place, and peers continued growing. i am so thoroughly embedded in this collection of work, but this embodied experience has moved through me to become another version of itself.

the version it has become is one with purpose. art is a tool through which we see the world, which means art has a function; art is not inert, it is active.22 this collection of naturally dyed textiles carries within it my practice of repetition, which is really a practice of making sense of my own existence. in sharing these pieces with you, they become a place for you to practice sensemaking of your own. the textiles are both window and mirror, acting as a frame through which you can see me and as a surface on which you can see yourself.

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when i began this project, there was no final form i was determined to make. i view my role in making art as one of collaborator, as in i am not in charge. i have ideas and am curious about certain techniques, but i release any assumption that i will bend materials to my will. i make choices, the cotton makes choices, the growing season makes a million choices. as i move through my creative practice, i receive the results of the process as they come. all of these choices become translations that inform and create something real.

while i embrace the outcomes and continue making within them, there are still important qualities and goals for the work i share. i make art that reflects my relationship with the practice of making. ideally, the work is able to communicate this relationship to my audience. i want my art to resonate with others in a softly reliable way so that they can’t help but collect the circles of my thoughts and translate them into their own ways of knowing. this collaborative act is how we relate to existence in all its forms. it is how the experience that moved through my body to become the art you see continues to move through you and become yet another version of itself.

my body is morning light is an installation that aims to connect you to your own body, inviting you to sink into cycles of breath and sunrise, hopefully leading you to the embodied understanding that these cycles are one and the same.

and if you see this collection in person, i have questions for you:

do you stand in front of this hanging textile, watching it breathe? do your eyes move around the circles, and do you know each one is a moment entirely unto itself? do you feel yourself breathe? do you see yourself in one of these moments? does the softness of the material and the quietness of the color calm your nervous system to the point you remember that you are a body? does the quality of light moving through the textile make you consider some quality of light within yourself?