How long have you been working in the industry?
8 years in hospitality carpet. 30 years in textiles.
What territory do you currently cover?
South Central US - TX, OK, LA etc.
What is your earliest memory that motivated you to pursue a career in design?
GMy stepmother taught me how to sew when I was about 7 years old. Since then, I have had a special affinity for textiles, but have always loved painting as well. So, when it came time to pursue a career, a friend and mentor steered me into textile design. Textiles are both art and craft and after all these years is still exciting and rewarding.
Infuse 030 Inspiration
What's been your design process when you developed this infuse collection for Durkan?
A few weeks after moving to Texas, I stopped at the gas station and, as I started filling up, a cowboy rode up on his horse from the nearby pasture, jumped off his horse, tied it to a tree by the dumpster and entered the QT to get whatever cowboys get at the QT on a weekday morning. It made me smile because cowboys seem so mythological it's easy to forget that they still exist, still live and work mostly the same way they have done for 120 years. With the popularity of shows such as Yellowstone and the legend of the cowboy still very much alive in Texas, I wanted to pay homage to and translate these observations of cowboys' past and present with a rugged, well-worn collection that gives a nod to the dust, sweat, grit, and styles of the Texas cowboy.
Infuse 030 Inspiration
When you are short on inspiration, how to you regenerize; where do you go for inspiration?
Most of the time I go to the garden! I have a BIG garden. Manual labor helps to shut off the brain so it has time to rest and reorganize, to sort things out so they can be looked at with a fresh perspective. Once your mind has had a break, it's easier to find inspiration in everything around you.
