collages to happiness

I have a drawer full of scissors from over the years I have collected, not intentionally. They are just part of the job, a very important part, the right pair can set you on a course of smooth sailing through a long night cutting through fabric like a warm knife through butter. Scissors are essential to my work, I am a fashion designer, I cut fabric endlessly it seems and I am known to pitch a fit if someone uses my fabric scissors on paper ( my sister and I have had it out over a pair of scissors!). Once you find a good ( and cute) pair like a mate, you try to preserve and protect them. Sometimes they disappear or get used in the kitchen or on a project, the things that a good pair of scissors can fall prey to are endless.

In March of 2020, scissors became a tool that took on even more meaning in my life. I was fired from work one day before the shutdown happened and before I could start feeling sorry for myself there was a greater need. An art community I am a part of put out a call for any sewers willing to help make face masks for essential workers. I downloaded a pattern and started sewing with any fabric I had at home. Many members of my immediate family are essential workers including my mother and my father so everything hit very close to home. After a couple of months of making masks daily, I began to feel the anxiety and uncertainty weighing heavily on my spirit. The daily worrying about your loved ones and not being able to connect was hard, then the extreme sadness for the lives lost was taking its toll on me. I couldn’t watch the news without crying. I turned to my outlet, art, to help me maintain my sanity. I daily felt lost and had to rebuild my structure.

I started making things other than masks or clothes. I made pillows which I fell in love with! I can not explain it but pillows become a random source of joy I was not expecting. I usually save scraps to see if anything can be repurposed, it is one of my goals to be as sustainability conscious as possible especially with fashion, and it hit me to try collaging. At first I thought about a quilt which is actually still on my list but I decided to try abstract fabric collages then move to mixed media collages. Every morning, I would get up and with help from my team ( my Fiskars and sewing machine) I would start my day with pillows then move to abstract collages. It was so fun and managed my anxiety! Clipping those bits of fabric and ribbon helped me remember the possibilities of life. Sometimes they did not fit how I envisioned them coming together in my head but they did eventually come together and sometimes better than my vision.

There was so much death and fear, at times I felt paralyzed. Not just in the grand scheme of the world but in my own life. Creating has always been my way of healing and maintaining myself mentally but this past year I felt like I had to stitch myself back together ( have you seen the movie “the nightmare before Christmas”?). I didn’t realize until afterwards that every piece of fabric I cut was reclaiming my mind and my heart. I was cutting through my fear, my anxiety, my hurt with my scissors. On my living room floor, covered in mod podge and paint, surrounded by scraps of fabric, I remembered I could steer my ship.