CURRENT PROJECT
Piecing Myself Together
WORK IN PROGRESS
Piecing Myself Together is an ongoing quilted self-portrait built from 5,775 individual 1.5-inch fabric squares.
I began the project before leaving an abusive relationship, at a point when I already knew I was going to leave. The title came from the idea that once I was out, I would have to begin putting myself back together and decide who I wanted to become.
The portrait is assembled pixel by pixel, turning that idea into something physical: thousands of separate pieces gradually becoming one image.
FIBER ART · SELF-PORTRAIT · MACHINE QUILTING · COTTON
THE IDEA
I started making it before I was free.
I began Piecing Myself Together while I was still in the relationship, but after I had reached the point where I knew I was going to leave.
I was already thinking about what would happen afterward. Leaving would change my circumstances, but I knew it would not immediately undo everything the relationship had done to the way I saw myself. I expected that becoming independent again would also mean figuring out who I was without that relationship and deciding what parts of myself I wanted to carry forward.
The title came before the quilt was finished, and in many ways before the rebuilding had even begun. I imagined that I would have to piece myself together into someone new.
Building a self-portrait from thousands of individual squares gave that idea a physical form. Each piece is small on its own, but together they slowly become recognizable as a person.
IN PROGRESS
The image emerges slowly.
Progress on the quilt happens slowly. Up close, the work is mostly individual pieces, seams, color, and repetition. The portrait becomes recognizable only when enough of those pieces begin to come together.
I have been working on the project over a long period of time, which feels appropriate for a piece that began with the idea of rebuilding. The person making it now is not the same person who started it.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The work has been changing alongside me.
Piecing Myself Together is still unfinished. There are more sections to assemble and the final quilting process still ahead.
I started the project while imagining the person I might become after leaving. I have now had years to live some of that change while the quilt has remained in progress.
Finishing it will mean completing a self-portrait that began with a version of myself who knew she needed to leave but did not yet know what her life would look like afterward. That distance has become part of the work too.
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