What if I’m not ready to be mended? And how do I know where to start?

The Mending is a series of ceramic wall sculptures in which I explore the messy undertaking of healing and restoration, thinking through what it means to mend a life, a situation, a family, and the difficulty – plus the great possibility of beauty – that comes with that process.

The motif of the patchwork quilt is rendered in clay as a tactile carrier of stories. A domestic object of utility, the quilt protects and warms the body, and is pieced together by its maker into a complex and beautiful patchwork. Its making process is time-consuming, and each stitch carries the thoughts, laughter, tears, and hopes of that maker. Quilts are humble vessels of healing, holders of memory, and visual representations of the multitude of parts that make up a person. In their fragmented state, these ceramic wall quilts represent a life moving towards restoration, with each piece unearthed from where it was hidden, laid out for all to see, and brought together in an effort to re-make what was broken.

Each fragment is crafted from paper clay, a mix of stoneware clay and shredded paper made from the shredded writings of myself and my family members. Participants were given the framework of trauma, brokenness, and healing, and were asked to provide writing (new words or journal pages) in a sealed envelope, that was then shredded without being read by myself. The paper shreds were then broken down in water and added to watery clay, before being left to dry and eventually formed into workable clay. In the hot kiln the paper burned out leaving us with the remaining clay that is light, and bears the porous traces of the hidden words. Small remnants of my own written words are visible on the peeled edges of the fragments.

With this series I work through some of what it takes to mend generational trauma, to collectively heal as a family, and to pursue wholeness. The patchwork quilt, memorialized in paper clay and presented as aged fragments, moves towards restoration with each pinched form, each careful stitch. You cannot begin to mend unless you first lay it all out, all the broken fragments, and you let the fractures be seen. Then you can begin the life-long process of being made whole.