“I do it because I honestly enjoy it. It’s fun for me to relax and sew and work hard and be at rest at the same time. It’s a very peaceful full time job. I love it. We get to meet so many people and inspire people. I think it’s become something bigger than we even knew it could be. We sit at sewing machines all day and it’s not that cool but people that come in are very inspired.”

“You know, I guess what it comes down to is that when I was a kid I loved adventures. I know every kid says that they love adventures but I was lucky enough to be raised near a lake and we owned several acres of woods so I was able to create my own adventures with my siblings. Being able to depict a narrative on a painting is important for me.“

“As I got older I started seeing that value in using second hand materials so that’s a big part of why I continue to do it. We just already have so much stuff on the planet. We don’t need to keep producing and producing and producing when we have so many things that aren’t being used…materials, artwork, objects, clothing, items…they have a story to them, they’ve been to places we’ll never know and have experienced things we can’t even imagine.”

“Not everyone will ever like my work, nor do I want them to. As long as I feel I keep creating what I feel connected with and I like it to the point where I sign my name off on it and feel passionate and someone else likes it then I’m really happy.”

We've found that too often people safeguard their knowledge and resort to secrecy. They believe that should someone else suddenly learn what they know, their status would be threatened. This is a big problem.