I walk in my neighbourhood and I walk on the Lake Superior coast. I look at what is around me. In the city, on my daily walks, I sketch, photograph, and make prints of manhole covers in the urban landscape. My colour palette comes from observing rocks and lichens on the coast of Lake Superior. While the urban environment is my daily reality, this palette represents a longing for a distant landscape. To make my weavings I make a print of a manhole cover. In this case a Bell Telephone Company (BTCo) manhole-cover from my street. The print is used as a cartoon for tieing resists. I measure and fold the coast-coloured warp threads (using techniques from Sumba, Indonesia). Tie the threads to preserve the colour; resist the dye. I weave in plain weave with silk weft. Walking through the urban landscape I see hundreds of manhole covers. They are portals. Underfoot yet unseen. In my weavings I remake them. Hangings soft and seen. I want people to look at the landscape differently, to notice things, both mundane and sublime.
