Mending as Healing

I have sat observing the world around me for the last five years. What I see scares me. I see so much hate, so much divisiveness, so much apathy. I see a society that once cared deeply about its members, torn into pieces. I worry about what we have become and what will be left if we can't repair these rifts between us.

There are some things I know, however. I know that society can be healed. I know that it will never be the same after it is mended. I know that it can take a long time to heal the depth of some wounds. I know that some wounds will heal stronger. I know that some will heal into something weaker that we will all need to be there for. I know that we will all carry the impact of what has been wounded and what has been healed.

I know we will all be changed.

I also know I don't have answers. I have only questions.

The artwork in this series is from an older body of work that I created in 2020. I used it as the base for the metaphor of the wounds in our society and the mending work that we must all do in order to make society whole again. Over the course of this exhibit, I will be mending each piece in turn to represent the constant work of mending and healing that needs to be done over time as we suffer wounds and injuries. The artwork in the collection will come and go as each one is taken to be mended.

All of the artwork will be mended using visible mending techniques and materials from both fibre art and visual art. This presents its own challenge as paper is not as forgiving or simple to work with as fabric and sometimes requires mending the previously mended areas or making the mended area larger than first intended. A blending of the two traditions creates another layer to the metaphor of mending to make something imperfectly whole.