“I am an artist in the mediums of wool, cedar and paint. I have always wanted to create what I see and feel in the world that surrounds me. My world of forest, beach, ocean and mountains are the environments that enveloped my Haida ancestors. As a young person my drive for creativity produced scenes of landscapes and seascapes in oil on canvas. After university and marriage, I moved to Martha’s Vineyard Island a great distance east of the Northwest Coast. I painted the scenes of that beautiful island in watercolors because it was a safer medium to have around my three young children. I fell under the spell of the magic of watercolor, a paint that brings its own unique play on the surface of paper. After many years away, I returned to the Pacific Northwest. That return brought a yearning to join the revival that was happening within the traditional arts of the coast. I started by painting dancers in the regalia of the cultures. But I come from a family of weavers and the flying fingers of my mother, inspired and summoned me into creating the ceremonial regalia using my own hands to join the ancestral rhythm in the textile traditions of the Haida. I now specialize in weaving the traditional chief’s robes of the Naaxiin. The formline designs of the Naaxiin robes flow within a matrix of horizontal and vertical fiber. I “paint” in wool and cedar and my paint brushes are now my fingers moving in the ancient rhythm of my weaving ancestors. The garments of the past proclaimed alignment to the natural and supernatural forces of the environment and I have researched this early role of the mountain goat wool garments of the Haida. Today the wool textile robes continue to drape clan leaders during traditional ceremonies. It is an honor to produce objects and garments that illustrate the continuing story of power and culture that evolved from the past and moves us into the forces that surround us today.”