Heart to Heart

Heart to Heart is an oil painting made in collaboration with my grandmother, Paula Reber. After painting the body of a young woman, I designed a sewing pattern and returned home to Gettysburg, PA, where we made her heart in Reber’s sewing studio.

This work is oil paint on raw canvas, combined with fabric and thread from her collection. The sewing needle embedded in the painting is actually my great-great-grandmother’s (My grandmother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother were all seamstresses). Thinking of my female identity, my new-found agency, and my childhood, it was an honor to work so closely with an influential woman and artist in my life.