My primary medium is a manual typewriter. I use this early tool of secretaries to create images of women using a variety of appropriated and original texts. In the series Textual Portraits, I am interested in visualizing the historical context of American women’s lives and conveying a sense of social heritage. My work starts with an image of a contemporary woman, often a scholar, artist, or student, who has made an impression on me. I select a classic social text that has relevance to the woman's life life to create her image. By interlocking the historic words and the contemporary image I hope to convey the context of time and place. I create portraits with text to emphasize the weight of words and to allude to the idea that our lives are the creations of our minds and social construction.
