I use fabric and a sewing machine to create paintings that reposition identity and romanticism as commercial tools of pop culture. Whether as fashion or as utility, fabric has always been an integral part of the process or cultural identity formation. Our relationship to fabric is so deeply ingrained that it’s become part of our vernacular in phrases like a common thread, a cut of one's jib, dressed to the nines, worse for wear and many other metaphors that cut across all these definitions. My paintings merge the language of symbolic representation and the material tactility of fabrics in order to re-imagine potential sites for identity construction, historical contextualization, and cultural meaning. The painting acts as a framing device for references inferred in the patterns and texts. Context begins to arise from the relativity of the patterns to each other and in the way each edge meets. The layering of the materials and the addition of text across the painting break the superficial plane and allow for a more dynamic appearance. The process of sewing layers, the choice of materials, and text opens each painting to individual interpretation allowing the viewer to have a sense of place in the imagery.