Short Bio
Working toward a sustainable earth, Flanagan uses reclaimed fabric and paper with botanical dyes and stitch, to revitalize fiber into mixed media art. Her pieces reference a connection between place and family.
Statement
Influenced by a large community of botanical artists across the world, I dye and ecoprint cloth and paper using ecologically sustainable local leaves, flowers, and pigments. These techniques transfer brilliant and unexpected plant colors and images to repurposed and redesigned cloth. As a textile artist, writer, and physician, I believe that hand marked fabric and cloth is ‘everyday art’. Throughout my life I have rebirthed cloth with thread, color, and design, as quilts, garments, and fabric collage. With these explorations, I am stitching a connection between the sensibilities and location of the Bay area, and everyday living of our families and community. Generations of hands touch thread and cloth, to create a piece of cloth that wraps and heals the body and spirit. Honoring these history laden cloths, I upcycle discarded fabrics for rebirth and reuse telling a new story of connection between place, fiber, and family. Using natural products extracted from the earth and plants, I breathe new life into these designed cloths, transforming them into articles to be touched, worn, or gazed upon by their owners. This manipulation of cloth mirrors the work of life-- to honor what has come before yet continuously question and reinvent ourselves anew.
