Fiber

My art leads me, the rhythm of the colors tell me where to go, what shapes to make; the velvet waves of an infinite ocean, the yellow, flat earth sprawling into the green hills holding up the impossibly expansive blue sky (the heavens). My art is an attempt to capture that which cannot be tethered, merely observed, taken in, like a setting sun giving way to colors which remind me that we share the sky every time our eyes gaze outward and upward.

My knitting, embroidery, and needle punching bring me back home on any given day, even when the idea of home feels unreachable and murky. Even on the afternoons and evenings when my mental illness is leaving me overwhelmed and out of emotional tools, the steady punch of the needle, the tugging, looping, trimming of the yarn call me back into my body. Through shapes and bright colors my hands can slowly calm, my breath finds it beat, and I am called back to the present by the blank canvas in front of me.

On this canvas is my joy, through these fibers I have found myself. Through curiosity, error, practice, unraveling and re-raveling, I find the gift of transformation; skeins into a blanket, an old cloth napkin into a memory, scissors creating shapes and texture which can nudge you to the most unexpected of places, even back to right now, as I run tassels through my fingers to trim trim trim, until I feel the ineffable is closely captured.

Crafts have always been a means of coping for me, my busy hands created a place where my anxiety, my loneliness, my feelings, could land, be processed, and embraced. As I braced again and again for transition and change, when my pain and chronic injuries made everything more difficult , fiber arts have provided relief and comfort. They have allowed me to create sense, order, and grounding, through dark clouds and chaos. Through the repetitive loops, I find my story, my voice, and as minutes turn into hours, I create something new, entirely mine, unique to the present moment, yet impossible without all that led me here.

Through these projects, I have learned patience, I have learned presence. Fiber art continues to remind me that nothing can be rushed, and only through being intentional and present with my materials, allowing the colors to paint themselves, that I am able to uncover the practice I am being called to.

Art has long allowed us to communicate feelings, create connection, share meaning, emotions, and human experiences. Each time I feel the weight of the scissors in my hand, I am working to sculpt my own understanding. I see others doing the same, and even if our contexts, perspectives, or mediums are different, I feel understood, I feel challenged, inspired, and witnessed.

When I see my art on a wall, in a home, a place of warmth, I am reminded of where I came from, the labor of love that is put into each loop, the generations before me that have harnessed and honored the magic of fiber, and how grateful I am for these practices. In a world that can feel relentless and impossible, the only way I know how to survive is to recognize, claim, create, and craft within the small moments of beauty that surround me; I try to root myself firmly in these ephemeral joys: these sun spots, these crashing waves, these plains that go forever, amongst all the confusion and uncertainty, I find comfort in the small moments. I find light in the meaning I create and build, within myself and the world around me. Through fiber we connect to parts of ourselves, our histories, our present, our meaning, and the world we create together.