The Healing Stitch
Kay Portmess
Hand
Sewing and sitting
Up and down
In and out
Ebbing and flowing
Meditating
with the
motion of
my hand.
Remembering
sweet memories
from the cloth and thread.
Each stitch
a prayer
Healing and mending.
Calming
Meditating
Ebbing and flowing
In and out
Up and down
hand sewing
and sitting.
Artist Statement—I have been a maker of things since my childhood, using various mediums. My artwork has had stages throughout my life. One art form morphs into another - needlepoint, knitting, sewing, cloth dolls to paper dolls, art journals and painting. My inspiration is taken from daily life and frequently is an expression of a story, event or feeling. My art reflects a spiritual aspect of my days. I create in layers giving an underlying meaning and depth to my work. Words are an important feature of my art. Art has been and still is, a healing experience for me, a way to process my life journey.
Maura Harrison
The needle and the thread—
stitching, mending, binding,
the snag, the worn spot, the hole,
the story, time, bits of memory.
Making your mark—
taking what's found, scraps, pieces
and loving them new,
a friendship, a story, memories,
an anthology of living.
With the needle's pierce
and the thread's recovery
what has unraveled speaks again
patching the fabric of the soul.
Artist Statement—Often it is tempting to put off certain artistic endeavors to some future, less hectic time in life. Realizing that this calm, relaxing creative moment might never happen, I decided to focus on a path that was portable and easy to accomplish in small blocks of time. For a long time, this was photography. Over the last few years, I have turned to the fiber arts. Working with older fabrics, remnants, scraps, and dyes is like wading into a stream of many different stories and the appeal of a quilt is the joy of collecting and bringing together those varied voices.
Many of my pieces start with fabric scraps or hand-dyed materials that are fused to a fleece layer, machine stitched, and then hand-stitched. I share progress photos on my Instragram feed at instagram.com/mhh25artquilts/.
