Sommer Roman maintains an eco-sustainable studio practice.  She transforms post-consumer textile discards in to evocative playful forms that invite us back to our wild and whole selves.  Her tactile and material-forward work hopes to enchant in order examine the more immaterial aspects of our lives.  

All of her work can be thought of as being-ness reimagined, hybrids of our various parts that yearn for reclamation and interconnectedness: plant, animal, human, feral & tame, physical and invisible.  Her process is intuitive & laborious process, rooted in the slowness of crafting by hand.  The act of transforming used clothing that bares the imprint of home & body and of a lives lived is a physical and metaphorical symbol of old to new, death to life, and transformation and rebirth an ever-present possibility.  The process itself is a portal for unexpected forms to be birthed.  Her work holds links to historical and contemporary movements within craft, feminism, and surrealism. Roman’s non-traditional approach to textiles is indeed a nod to her female lineage who worked with textiles through traditional methods and lived reserved domestic lives.  Roman’s work intends to reclaim that history by taking up space, breaking with tradition, and embracing a universal birthright of lively, playful, and sensual living that her foremothers weren’t able to fully claim for themselves.

Through evocative color, organic forms, and materiality, Roman’s work invites viewers back to the realm of interconnectedness, play, the wild feminine, the handmade, and the body as potent sites of wisdom and innate aliveness.