“The Creator and the Creation”

I took these pictures on New Year’s Eve as she was sewing her clothing for a church celebration on that same night. She’s been sewing since before I was born and has been doing it for approximately 35-40 years. Growing up as an artist, I believed that no one around me, including my family, influenced me to create more. Despite seeing dozens of women come into our home and ask my mother to develop and stylize their clothing, It never pushed me to keep developing new ideas. That’s because at the time, I didn’t see sewing as a form of art

I was wrong.

The skills that my mother had, made me feel much more closer to my culture than I ever realized it did. The designs on the fabric of those dresses, was a peak into how women and men back in Africa would dress themselves for special occasions, and how my mother was creating something like that in these pictures. Remembering the dozens of fabric and its bright colors around our house and looking back at that now, has made me appreciate and idolize how much of a very creative women my mother truly is.

Although some see sewing simply as a craft, sewing is a creative outlet that can also be considered as a fine art due to the line work, patterns, cutting, stitching, and designs. Which are all traits of your average artists. I always thought about how I’m the only person in my family that’s capable of creation in terms of artwork, but the realization that I made while taking these pictures, is that my creator is just as creative as me.