Born and raised in Baltimore, Scott earned her BFA at MICA. Her mother, the artist Elizabeth Talford Scott (whose artworks are also exhibited at the BMA and across Baltimore this spring), encouraged Scott’s identity as an artist from childhood. Scott learned to make the things necessary for daily life—clothing, quilts, and her home environment—into beautiful artworks by recycling, salvaging, and creating anew from discarded materials.

She also learned a cooperative, egalitarian ethos which evolved and grew as she traveled the world. During her graduate studies at the Instituto Allende in Mexico, and subsequent travels through Central America, Africa, Europe, and Asia meeting artists who integrate their art into daily life, Scott recognized that her family’s creative power belongs to a global continuum.

In 1976, Scott learned the peyote stitch from Muscogee (Creek) artist Sandy Fife Wilson, forever transforming her artistic practice. Scott uses this versatile technique as the engine for her art by improvising flat and dimensional beadwork patterns in any shape she can imagine. Scott speaks of her “passport of needle and thread” as a way to connect with people across cultures wherever she goes. She has nurtured deep roots in Baltimore, bringing the world back to her hometown and sharing Baltimore with the world.