Thread as a Line of Thought
Inspired by Louise Bourgeois and Sheila Hicks
There is a reason a single stitch can change the entire surface of a work.
Thread is not merely a tool of repair — it’s a way of thinking.
In both equestrian practice and in art, endurance is often imagined as strength without fracture. But true endurance is something quieter, more deliberate. It’s the willingness to return to what has torn, to move through it slowly, and to bind it with intention.
Louise Bourgeois saw stitching as emotional archaeology. Sheila Hicks treated thread as architecture. In that same spirit, I use thread not just to mend, but to mark — to acknowledge the line between what was broken and what is becoming whole.
Every stitch is a choice.
A small act of persistence.
A visible record of repair.
In the Rugged Grace collection, thread functions as both boundary and bridge: pulling edges together, creating tension, letting the surface shift and breathe. It holds history without hiding it. It reveals resilience without spectacle.
These works are not about seamlessness. They honor what has been reinforced, reconsidered, re-formed.
For those who collect with intention, Rugged Grace offers more than imagery. It offers a map of endurance — one drawn, quietly, in thread.