My practice investigates the invisible labor of women and their perceived domestic roles. Raised in rural Iowa, I was immersed in traditional domestic practices like cooking, gardening, and sewing from an early age. By blending these foundational experiences with my professional training in fashion design, my work offers a distinct perspective informed by the history of domestic science.

Reclaiming the chemistry and rigor behind domestic science, I use kitchen chemistry to cook all-natural bioplastics using starch, gelatin, and agar-agar. These materials function as domestic archives, encapsulating artifacts of personal and cultural significance like kitchen scraps, shredded U.S. currency, and flower petals embedded with meaning through Victorian floriography. Applying my fashion design background to these alternative textiles, I hand-stitch and crochet this bioplastic ‘leather’ into historic quilt blocks and sculptural objects to archive and reimagine the domestic sphere. The inherent biodegradability of these works introduces a critical tension: their physical survival relies entirely on the continuous care of a keeper. This deliberate fragility mirrors the demanding, ephemeral, and historically unpreserved reality of the invisible labor they critique.

Guided and ignited by reverie, my work reconstructs, invents, and catalogues hopes, wishes, and fears for the future. On a personal level, my work centers around themes of family, as well as, on a global level, often addressing issues of justice and sustainability. The meditative act of twisting and waving wire into mundane objects allows each piece to evolve slowly to represent the profound realities and wonders of life. 

Define “emerging”. Can one be an “emerging artist” if, after a lifetime of making but not showing, one finally decides to go public? That is where I am, 74, and finally coming out of my closet.

I look below the surfaces of things. My subjects are cells, roots, mycelia, deep ancestral histories and mythologies. I scavenge the detritus of the world everywhere I see it – complicated histories, family stories, streets, in the woods, on rocks and the beach, art of every time and every place for my images and my constructions. I shamelessly – or perhaps shamefully – appropriate what I see and use it, recombining and reusing, delving into questions of identity and purpose.

The waste of the world is both distressing and beautiful. I try to see the potential in whatever has been discarded or overlooked. The harm that humans do to each other and to the natural world does not feel reparable, but I want to call attention, to place myself in the middle of it as both perpetrator and beneficiary. Nothing is clear; all is nuance.

I reflect on the complex and nuanced challenges of our present moment. Is there something healing to be born from all this devastation and waste?

Portraits of Complicity are imagined portraits of some of my female ancestors who, while powerless in a larger sense, still benefited from the actions of the men in their lives who conquered, fought, extracted resources, and profited from an extractive and sin-oriented worldview. Although I don’t know much about their lives, I am the beneficiary of all their work did bringing generations into the world, supporting their husbands, sons, and fathers. I wanted to name them and, where I could, acknowledge the details of their lives.

FRANCES MOODY KILBOURNE

1585 – Born in Wood Ditton, Cambridgeshire, England

1604, Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s -age 20

1609 – 1625 – 8 children

1635 – Sailed for Turtle Island (age 50),

settled in Pyquag, Wangunk Territory (Wethersfield, CT))

1637 or 39- Widowed in the Pequot War (probable)

1650 – Died in Pyquag,

leaving her beehives to her daughter – age 65

SARAH BRONSON KILBOURNE

1641 – Born Poquonock, (Farmington, CT)

1665 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s- age 24

1665 – 1675 – 6 Children

1711 – Died in Pyquag (Wethersfield, CT) – age 70

REBECCA ALLEN GOODRICH

1660 – Born Mishawum, (Charlestown, MA)

1678 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 18

1679 – 1694 6 Children

After 1719 – Died Pyquag, (Wethersfield, CT) – age around 60

MARY DIGGINS KILBOURNE

1711 – Board Mattabesett (Middletown, CT)

1729 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s -age 18

1729 – 1742 – 10 Children

1748 – Widowed age 37

1761 – Saukiog (Hartford, CT) – age 50

ABIGAIL JONES KILBOURNE

1729 – Born Saukiog (Hartford, CT)

1752 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 23

1752 – 1759 – 5 children

1759 – Widowed (husband lost at sea)

1798 – Died in Saukiog- age 69

LAURENA EVANS KILBOURNE

1757 – Born Nowashe (E. Windsor, CT)

Ca. 1782 exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 25

1783 – 1800: 8 Children

1801 – Died Hockanum (E. Hartford) – age 44

MARTHA TREAT ROBERTS

1788 – Born Nowashe (E. Windsor, CT)

1805 – Exchanged her Father’s name for her husband’s -age 17

1807 – 1808 – 2 children

1809 – Died, possibly in childbirth, Hockanum (E. Hartford, CT)

– age 21

HARRIET TREAT ROBERTS

1789 – Born Nowashe (E. Windsor, CT)

1809 Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s -age 20

following the death of her sister Martha

1810 – 1819 – 6 children

1822 – Died, possibly in childbirth, Hockanum (E. Hartford)

– age 33

ROXA GILLETT KILBOURNE BURNHAM

1789 – Born Nowashe (E. Windsor, CT)

1805 ? – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s -age 16

1806 – 1820 – 6 children

1822 – Declared widowed (husband lost at sea, intestate) -age 33

(Granted $79 worth of household goods and a mourning costume In pronate)

1825 – Exchanged her husband’s name for a new husband 27

years her senior

1845 – Widowed again

1851 – Died, Hockanum (E. Hartford) – age 63

JERUSHA ROBERTS KILBOURNE

1819 – Born Hockanum (E. Hartford)

1838 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s

1839 – 1848 – 4 children

1909 – Died Hockanum (E. Hartford) – age 90

ELLEN MARIA (NELL) KILBOURNE BISHOP

1845 Born Hockanum (E. Hartford)

1879 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 34

1880 – 1894 – 4 children

1934 – Widowed

1937 – Died Yantic, Mohegan Territory (Norwich, CT) – age 92

ELIZABETH HYDE LORD

1660 – Born Yantic, Mohegan Territory (Norwich, CT),

first white child born in Norwich

1682 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 22

1694 – Child (other children not known)

1736 – Death Nehantic Territory (Lyme, CT) age 76

MARGARET MORGAN HEBBARD

1686 – Born Mohegan Territory (Preston, CT)

1709 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 23

1722 – Child (other children not known)

1732 – Widowed

1752 – Died Willamantic (Windham)

KEZIAH HEBBARD BISHOP

1722 – Born Willamantic (Windham, CT)

1739 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s – age 17

1740 – Child (other children not known)

1770 – Died Willamantic (Sprague, CT) – age 48

HANNAH PAGE BISHOP

1744 – Born Yantic (Norwich, CT)

Ca. 1760 exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s

1762 – Child (Other children not known)

1775 – Widowed

1835 – Died – age 91

WELTHEAN (WEALTHY) ADAMS BISHOP

1760 – Born Yantic – Mohegan Territory (Norwich, CT)

1783 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband’s age 23

1789 – Child (other children not known)

1839 – Died Yantic (Norwich, CT) – age 79

LUCY HUNTINGTON BISHOP

1793 – Born Mohegan Territory (Lisbon, CT)

1815 – Exchanged her father’s name for her husband age 22

1818 – Child (other children not known)

1855 – Died Mohegan Territory (Hanover, CT) – age 62

Jars of Patriarchy and Conquest

Jars are usually associated with the female form, but I wanted to recognize the ways in which my male ancestors introduced plants, animals, belief systems, behaviors, waste, pollution, slavery, and disease. They also removed resources, wealth, and sovereignty. These actions continue to play out today. The Jars of Patriarchy represent the many ways in which that extractive worldview has played out in the Americas particularly, but also everywhere that Colonialism has touched the Earth. This is part of my personal legacy and I feel the need to acknowledge the complicated nuances of their actions.

In my objects, installations, and public artworks, I reclaim and repurpose trash that litters the streets, forests, waterways, and beaches. Materials come primarily from my home and local community, and on daily walks and through social media. I collect single-use plastic packaging, including plastic mailers, shopping bags, water bottles, food wrappers, found thread, and vintage linens.

I transform these unwanted materials — cutting them apart, collaging them together, stitching by hand and by industrial sewing machine — in an act of mending and beautification. The resulting objects are relics, making visible the materials choking the environment and overflowing landfills.

My practice involves the community, developing and creating public artworks where we pick up trash on walks, in our neighborhoods, and bring nonrecyclables from our homes. Collectively the materials are built into installations and objects, inspiring creativity, connections, and stewardship among neighbors as we learn how every little bit counts when we all work towards a better future.

These artworks before you are ruminations on healing, mending, and seeing: what does one need in order to heal properly? What kind of mending will help with healing? What must one be able to see in order to mend and heal? I am responding to emotions and materials, and letting intuition guide my hands. In this precarious world, where our future is uncertain yet full of astonishing possibilities, I am committed to both environmental action and artistic beauty.

I take a very methodical approach to creating my assemblages. Found objects are arranged in a formal style: balance, composition

and texture are integral elements of my work that act as a means to explore the redemptive qualities of discarded material.

My limited color palette comes from the materials used, such as: aged, dark wood; brass, silver and gold leaf; machine

parts; rusted metal; glass and natural elements. With artificial mechanisms, parts of unknown objects and bits of nature, each

assemblage speaks of some unknown purpose or history. Ultimately, in contrast to their humble origins, these assemblages

transcend the found quality of their individual parts to become objects of beauty.

I have no illusions of wanting to be “new”. I only want to put forward work that is original. My goal is to have clarity of vision

that when I put a piece together, it is unique and stands by itself as a work of art and as a body of work. My assemblages become

little shrines to unknown deities or reminders of memories familiar but long past. They speak not only of some unknown history

but they speak of my history as well and I call them Foundlings.