• Come As You Are… •

I’m not an amazing quilter. I’m not a certified art-therapist. I can’t follow a sewing pattern to save my life.

It’s easy to get caught up in all of the things we aren’t. It can be easy to convince ourselves that we don’t belong, or that we aren’t enough. For something. For someone.

Sometimes, we get to where we want to be, and we are riddled with the feeling that we aren’t worthy of being there. That we are an imposter. What torture is this?!

In making this space for myself, and ultimately, for you, I want to focus on what is. What I am. And how that connects me to people, experiences, and concepts outside of myself. I’m a seeker and a maker. I make things because I can’t help but do it. I seek stories because I have an insatiable curiosity for them and believe wholeheartedly that they matter! I am fascinated with objects and their incredible ability to hold memory. I will also happily ponder their mystery. I am desperately sentimental. Fabric brings me joy. Getting dressed in textiles that tell a story brings me joy.

I recognize the way creative expression is so often an act of resilience and resistance. How art is a tool for advocacy and education. How it brings people together. I cannot help but be acutely aware of the way creative expression often holds us in the heavier chapters of life.

All of this defines the path I am carving out for myself. What I am choosing to make space for.

So, instead of focusing on what I am not, I am focusing on how all of the above makes me a special kind of someone to reach out and pull some other special someone’s into a community of like-minded folk. The kind of folk who believe textiles are special and understand their magic in relation to story, memory, and sorrow.

Come as you are.

Cause I am going to, and you should too!

*These tattoos are replicas of a stitch pattern I used over and over on Dad’s quilt. Even when the quilt is gone - I’ll have these stitched in my skin.