Programming

Opening Reception 
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 5 - 7 PM
Artist tour at 6 PM

Family Book-making Event 
Saturday, March 14, 11 AM - 1 PM

Closing Artist Talk
Saturday, May 30, 12 PM

Artist Statement
The announcement of the UArts closure was shocking, enraging, and sad. I moved to Philadelphia twenty years ago to attend the UArts graduate program in Book Arts and Printmaking. I would meet my husband in that program, live within one mile of the school for the next two decades of my life, and eventually teach screen printing to undergraduates in the same room where I printed my thesis project. I’m still grieving the loss of this creative resource that enabled the transmission of skills to others and gave access to specialized equipment to students, educators, and the community at large. 

The most recent work included in this exhibition is a site-specific Pile. This is my fourth iteration of combining individually drawn, painted, screen printed, and stuffed fabric pieces into a large, chaotic pile. Every piece of artwork in this installation has a story behind it, often inspired by interviews I’ve conducted with other people throughout my practice as an artist and educator. I’ve recreated objects people described from their childhood homes, things they lost and wished they still had, and most recently, items from interviews I conducted with people about their pandemic experience.

During the lockdown I began combining the objects into piles, because the stuffed objects on their own seemed too static and quiet compared to the helicopters, boarded up stores, police brutality, Covid death counts, sirens, dirt bikes, protests, and general anxiety pulsing through the country. When I combined the objects into a massive, cacophonous group, they felt more like the experience of living through that time. For this particular installation at the former UArts Hamilton Hall, I am interested in hearing from people with a connection to UArts about their stories, and have collaborated with a fellow alum, Monica Morris, to create an interactive comment box in the exhibition.

I also included two recently completed works, Recycling Can and Metal Can, and a smaller installation of Dog Poop Bags, that are part of a new series of quilted paintings of trash piles. I photograph, draw, and paint these ephemeral heaps laid out by my neighbors every week and eventually collected by our sanitation department. My (absurdly) painstaking and time-consuming process of rendering each coffee cup sleeve and nutrition label is in direct contrast to the flippant, fast paced process of consumption and removal that is so vital to the momentum of our current society. I am interested in our custom of putting things we don’t want in a bag, sending it somewhere else, and forgetting it ever existed. This obviously short-sighted “solution” is widely practiced and supported by everyone in our society, including me. Our delusion of the promise of recycling has been unveiled as reports of the incineration of Philadelphia’s municipal waste in Chester, PA facilities have come to light (see Council Member Jamie Gunther’s Stop Trashing Our Air Act). Because there was absolutely no transparency in the UArts Board’s decision to abruptly shut down the institution, the general public doesn’t know exactly what happened, but I think many would agree that it was also an extremely wasteful and short-sighted “solution.”

While painting the Recycling Can I was struck by the tagline “Don’t trash a good thing,” which resonated with my hope that the Village of Industry & Art (VIA) will be a creative phoenix that rises from the ashes of the unfortunate maelstrom of the UArts closure. With proper care and commitment, there is so much potential for the former UArts building to serve as a hub for artists, designers, and the creative economy of Philadelphia. My hope is that VIA will salvage what it can from the rubble of the UArts closure and serve as a generative space that creates connections, inspires creativity, and benefits the people of Philadelphia for the next 150 years.