hannah c. nesbeda is a textile and mixed-media artist, photographer, and quilter.

I’m inspired by ecosystems, by their entropic patterns and the duel between order and chaos, by the deeply granular taxonomies of flora and fauna and rocks and water and weather that make up a particular place. I am equally fascinated by human ecosystems, both real and ethereal: the details and conflicts that define our place in the world or a particular moment in time, and our communities and shared history. My work is an exploration and expression of the questions that arise from the various ecosystems I inhabit.  I focus on creative reuse of found and salvaged materials, which are often imbued with the ghosts of the labor that went into their manufacture and the essence of those that used them before.

An adventurous autodidact, I find joy in exploring new mediums with a seasoned eye and a beginner’s mind. I particularly enjoy bringing practices and techniques that have historically been relegated to the world of domestic labor into the fine art space; I use stitching, mending, quilting, foraging, dyeing, and other hand work as a means of making a connection with the wisdom and skills of my forebears and of pushing at the boundaries of what it means to do “women’s work.”

A lifelong resident of Massachusetts with deep roots in the South Coast, I currently live on a fallowed farm in Rehoboth with my partner and three unruly dogs. I maintain my studio at Smokestack Studios in Fall River, MA, an artist/craftsperson collective studio located in a historic textile mill. When not there, I am typically found in my garden or working in my professional role as a nurse practitioner, a career that is as rewarding in its moments of sheer grace and human connection as it is taxing.