All the Lives Alive Inside Me opens at Hecho a Mano 9/5/26
Fruits of Our Labor, 2026, appliqué quilt with hand embroidery, 36 x 52 in.
All the Lives Alive Inside Me: A solo exhibition at Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, NM opens 9/5/26
Merging printmaking and fiber art, All the Lives Alive Inside Me traces the shape and texture of carework as it has unfolded across my lifetime. Through embroidered prints on paper and quilted portraits assembled from loved ones’ clothes, these works chronicle the giving and receiving of care in all its many forms, from child rearing to elder care, and from domestic arts to community organizing. The legacy of this generational labor lives on inside us and is made visible through the material traces it leaves behind – a quilt, an apron, a handwritten note. All the Lives Alive Inside Me is a love letter to this lineage and my place within it, a celebration of carework’s intimate and temporal textures.
Photo by James Lutz
This new body of work was conceived of and created during a period of immense transition – after years of caretaking for three aging family matriarchs, all unexpectedly passed away within five months of each other. Over the following year, as my partner and I navigated our grief and sorted through what remained of their lives, we found ourselves at a crossroads – with more time and capacity at our disposal, did we want to enter a new chapter of caregiving by becoming parents ourselves? With much consideration, we decided that we did. Now pregnant with our first child, I have become more deeply rooted in this lineage of carework than ever before, an embodiment of the lives, care, and labor I carry within me.
To capture the fullness of this journey, this show consists of three distinct yet interrelated series. Mending is a collection of appliqué quilts with hand embroidery, each a meditation on the reciprocity of intergenerational care and made from clothing and fabric scraps passed down to me. Portrait of a Familiar Embrace honors the handmade textiles of my childhood, each using a different printmaking method to reanimate these physical traces of care. Fencesitter captures the fleeting memories of care contained within us through monotypes of reimagined sonograms – an iconic motif also echoed throughout Mending. Together, these works make visible this legacy of care, chronicling my experience as a vessel carrying it from one generation to the next.
Fencesitter I., 2026, monotype with hand embroidery, 8 x 10 in.
Portrait of a Familiar Embrace III., 2026, collagraph inked à la poupée with hand embroidery, 21 x 15 in.
All the Lives Alive Inside Me opens Saturday, September 5th at Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, NM and is on view through September 27th. Join me for the opening on 9/5 from 5-7pm and view the exhibition online here. I will also be giving an artist talk at the gallery on Sunday 9/6 from 12-1:30pm — for more information visit the event page.