THE THREAD THAT BECAME CLOTH
The story of cloth, comfort, and the search for belonging.
THE PULL TOWARD CLOTH
I have always been drawn to things I could wrap around myself.
Fabric. Blankets. Clothes that felt good against my skin. Long before I understood why, there was something about cloth that felt like comfort.
It took me many years to understand how far back that longing went.
It began with a little pink blanket I called Bonkie.
WHERE IT BEGAN
It all began in childhood.
Life itself did not feel safe.
With mostly myself for company, few friends, and a feeling of alienation in my own family, I turned to the first thing I identified with love and safety for comfort.
It was my blanket, which I affectionately called “Bonkie.”
Bonkie was a pink and cream woven baby blanket with pink satin ribbon sewn around the edges.
The feel of the satin between my fingers gave me a sensual experience that I came to associate with love.
Bonkie went with me everywhere. Without it I felt lost, exposed, and unsafe. Wherever I misplaced it, I panicked.
The only other object that gave me anything close to the comfort Bonkie did was my stuffed monkey, called, of course, “Monkey.”
I knew precisely the feel and smell of each one. Nothing else would do. When either was lost and replaced with a substitute, I rebelled.
I knew the real thing.
And I was inconsolable without it.
The roots of my lifelong search for what is real and true.
“I have spent an entire lifetime seeking the love and comfort contained within that little piece of fabric.”
THE LONGING
As I grew up, Bonkie grew old with me.
I kept it hidden in my room, even as the fabric wore thin and began to fall apart. I couldn't bring myself to let it go.
By then Monkey was gone, and Bonkie was the last physical connection I had to that particular feeling of comfort.
I didn't know then that I would spend years trying to find that feeling again.
Not the blanket itself.
What I had known when I held it.
THE THREAD RETURNS
When I entered my teen years, my aunt taught me how to sew, and something familiar returned.
I remembered watching my mother sew when I was young—the soft rhythm of fabric moving through the machine, her hands guiding it beneath the needle. She was always knitting too.
Some of my earliest memories are of sitting beside her while her hands worked.
Textiles ran through my family in other ways as well. My grandparents had started a knitting mill when they immigrated to this country. I never thought of any of this as a lineage then. Sewing was simply something I loved.
Years later, I taught myself to knit.
The feel of yarn slipping through my fingers stirred the same sensory memory I had known with Bonkie.
For me, touch was the language of love.
THE TURNING POINT
When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2017, much of the life I knew began to come apart.
My body changed. My relationship with myself changed.
Things I had been able to push past or live around were suddenly impossible to ignore.
I returned to painting and writing, but something else began calling me too.
Cloth.
I wanted its weight. Its texture. The feeling of something against my skin.
I wanted to work with my hands in a way that was physical and immediate.
I didn't understand then that I was returning to something I had known much earlier.
My body remembered before I did.
WEARING THE TRUTH
For years I had imagined what it might be like to take the paintings off the wall and turn them into something I could wear.
Eventually I began having my own images printed onto fabric.
There was something extraordinary about seeing a painting become cloth—watching color and image move differently once they were no longer contained by a canvas. I could gather the fabric around me. Feel it against my skin. Move inside it.
And then I made the first piece for myself.
I remember putting it on and realizing that this was more than something beautiful to wear. I had taken something that came from deep inside me and wrapped my body in it.
At a time when I was still learning how to live more fully as myself, there was something almost startling about that.
“If I wasn’t yet ready to speak my truth, I could wrap myself in it.”
THE GROWN UP BONKIES
I began making the things
I had always needed myself.
Something I could pull around myself when I was tired. Something soft to lean into. Something that offered comfort through its weight, texture, and touch.
Over time, I realized I wasn't making these things only for myself.
There are people who know, in their own way, what it is to have needed more comfort than they received. Whose lives may be very different from mine, but who recognize that longing when they feel it.
I make these pieces with them in mind.
I know that longing because I've lived it.
The pieces I make grew from that knowing—from everything Bonkie taught me about touch, comfort, safety, and the need to feel held.
The blankets, pillows, and wraps I make now are my grown-up Bonkies.
THE OFFERING
These pieces began with something I needed for myself.
Over time, they became something I wanted to share.
I can’t know what another person has lived through, or what comfort means to them.
But I know what it is to need something tangible to reach for.
Something whose weight, texture, and beauty speak to the body before there are words for why.
That is what I hope these pieces can offer.
Not a substitute for what was missing.
But something real to wrap around yourself now.