Medulla

The motif of this work originates in a childhood memory: carefully reaching for a prickly pear during the hot days of the South. The certainty that one must first overcome its spiky skin before it reveals its vibrant, juicy interior.
It is the ritual of slicing open—that single moment when the rough outer shell gives way and the intense color of the fruit's flesh comes to light—that drives this piece.
Within the tufted layers, defense and devotion meet: the wild, frizzy edges carry the bristly, unwelcoming nature of the outer skin. Yet those who look inward encounter a soft, sheared fabric of deep magenta, pistachio, and orange. Seeds, structure, and color weave together in the textile to form a shape that can be grasped and felt.
Built knot by knot from salvaged wool remnants, the work becomes a tactile memory piece. It preserves not only the image of the fruit, but the sensation in one's hands: the connection to a place, a taste, and a time that lives on within the wool.