I have been a local textile artist here in the Kansas City area for the past 16 years. Beginning at a young age craft-making helped me manage my high anxiety and fears. As an adult, weaving is a meditative and therapeutic practice that helps me manage stress and process grief.

In 2016, I began to envision my "Healing with Weaving" initiative, to highlight the importance of how art, specifically weaving, can be a therapeutic tool for healing.  While my work has been placed in hospitals and places of worship, providing solace and reflection for visitors, I have wanted to find ways to teach people in these spaces how to weave themselves, giving them direct experience of the healing powers of the process.  

I am currently pursuing my MFA at the University of Kansas and during this Spring semester, I am teaching a remote Introduction to Weaving class where I am able to teach my students how to weave portably on laser cut frame looms.  For their second project, I asked them to focus while weaving on something or someone they have lost recently. This turned out to be an incredibly meaningful and healing project for both my students and myself. (View a few examples on the Testimonial page)Throughout the class, I kept on thinking about what I spoke in front of hundreds of people during an ArtsKC Inspiration Breakfast years ago: wanting to help people heal through weaving. 

I am wanting help launch this summer (2021) a pilot Healing with Weaving Community Outreach Pilot Project for patients, family members, and staff at Children’s Mercy Hospital Adele Hall Campus, the site of my first commission in a hospital, and a place I hold dear to my heart.  I will provide Healing with Weaving Frame Loom Kits that will include all the necessary weaving supplies and instructions.  I will also provide in-person workshops (as permitted) and an instructional video (that can be viewed on www.healingwithweaving.org). During this time of tremendous loss and pain that we feel collective, providing these kits along with video and workshops, weaving will be a source of healing, hope, and restoration in the hospital setting.

 After completing this first project for Children’s Mercy I plan to continue to partner up with local and hospitals, medical and counseling centers along with high schools and educational institutes including the University of Kansas to continue to help others slow down in life, taking time for self-care, while doing something creative with your hands focusing on material, color, pattern, one thread at a time. The act of weaving can help with anxiety, stress, grief, and loss, which helps you become a healthier and more grateful human being to yourself and others. 

If you want to help fund this pilot project please make your donation by clicking on the button down below. I will be also giving half of my Patreon Donations to help fund this project and will be holding a Textile Fundraiser in June. If you would like to receive more information about any Healing with Weaving Events, please subscribe to the Healing with Weaving Newsletter. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.