Anchoring Stitches

We could talk about my grandmother as someone who lived a life of service and gave of herself regularly to the community - both as the wife of two ministers, and in her own right as she navigated space as a single person.

We could talk about my grandmother as a professional in the medical field. Touched early by rheumatic fever and living ever since with its consequences, she contemplated a study of the sciences. But, influenced by family duty and gender roles, she found a career in hospital administration and made her imprint on medicine by influencing system structure and function.

You’re always fully dressed with a smile, and she rarely left the house without one.

With her recent passing, I’ve naturally thought so much of her, and how best to describe a long life well lived. What occurred to me is that, alongside the roles of wife, mother, parishioner, volunteer, and professional, one facet touched all the others: her love for, and expression through, fashion.

And because I can still hear her voice softly stating that she was not a “proper” artist, I’ve been exploring this idea that, somehow, art belongs only to professionals or particular domains.

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