“The Art of Sewing” by Alicia Viguer-Espert

Written ‘In Synergy’ with Fana Babadayo’s artwork, the little girl dress

This little dress, laced with lofty ideas
of justice, and equality reminds me of
one belonging to a sister I never knew,
hanging at the back of my mothers’ armoire.

Human sewed stories into the fabric of soul,
stitched threads of beauty and pain,
hope and loss in memories of children,
inviting us to join a calling to repair.

It all began with a few animal furs,
sinew from any of the killed Megaloceros,
a bone needle, a strong need to maintain
bodies above freezing temperatures.

Simple. Until some artsy Eve decided
to gather sea shells and dry berries.
On a summer day, she sat under an elm,
a stick hardened by fire to perforate them.

Linen from the flax plant inaugurated a new era,
pleats, folds, precious stones became the rigueur
for Egyptian upper classes, before the Romans
added gold fibula to hold capes on their shoulders.

Yes, Caligula had donned imported silk tunics, but
it was Justinian who captured Chinese silk worms
transformed VI century Byzantines into sybarites,
devaluated Greeks and Romans’ wool garments.

New skills had to be learned to keep seams straight,
gold thread from bunching up, needles from piercing,
teach their patrons how to move lightly, and of course,
ensure its use for the nobility only, forbid it for others.

This little white dress hangs empty and lonely,
flesh, which one day filled it with mirth absent
resting under the family’s marble pantheon.
We endure the loss, turn dresses into relics.

My mother had a Singer sewing machine,
a seamstress came to our home to outfit us,
four little girls always in need of something new.
We didn’t see the effort, imagination required
to sew raglan sleeves, bodices, flowery embroidery.
Our modiste stitched dresses, and memories.
Once, she repaired a tear on my favorite dress,
the precision, slow meticulousness of the task

carried as a silent meditation stayed with me.
I think there’s deep satisfaction in repairing
what’s ripped apart, separated, stained even.
Mending requires three levels of awareness,

one for what’s underneath, one for what’s damaged
or missing, and for what needs to go over the tear
to fashion it into a more flexible garment
since rigidity was what split it in the first place.

This art promotes attention, encourages patience,
thoughtful planning to transform parts into wholes,
a vision to render scraps into quilts of life comfort,
and the opportunity to create a cloak for the soul.

But our world does not value the temporary
place holding of basting, nor the cross-stitching
of negotiation, compromise. Society is unable
to predict the type of thread needed to unite.

This little dress affirms important values
and I, who couldn’t patch a moth bite
in a cashmere sweater, I’m learning to darn
using filaments of justice from this finery.