Mending Church

04/05/2024

I want to tell you the backstory on why I said yes to this, and spent the last month with the team from WBZ / CBS News Boston as they filmed me for their "Change Maker" segment that aired tonight: Producer Larry Lawson ran into me at the City of Boston's Reparations Task Force (which the expert Lori Nelson so wisely realized needed pastoral care in all the collective trauma). And Larry wondered why I was there. Larry knew we're going to need to shift perceptions about both religious leaders and reparations, so he convinced me to partake in this. We need to hear from Black leadership, and we need to shift white people on why we need repair. I especially want to thank Rev. Art J. Gordon, Rev. Gregory Groover, Rev. Donald Wells, Vernée Wilkinson my mending partner, Elizabeth Green my co-indigo grower and Abbi Holt who now has the chyron title "Rev. Laura's Wife." Journalist Lisa Hughes took incredible care with our story. Repair is a community effort.

Reverend Laura Everett, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, believes her calling is the work of repair.

10/10/2023

One of our core commitments is to teach with history as a means of repair. And so much knowledge is wisdom, though rarely named as such and even less often compensated. Natural dyeing did not just come into being in the age of instagram reels and influencers, but from deep ancestral wisdom of land and kin. Part of repair is acknowledging what has been torn. So on this , a reminder from this Hopi Black Dye sunflower of the roots of the dye, grown in Boston- the land of the Wampanoag, Pawtucket, Nipmuc, Massachusett .

09/23/2023

is . Collab today with the incredible artist for an dye circle in celebration of her art installation THEY DID NOT KNOW WE WERE SEEDS. Centering Black girl joy and play. Healing is mending, too.

08/30/2023

Laura here- I’ve been thinking more about regular maintenance as necessary repair work, and how little we value the skill of maintaining. I’m at least the second artist to work on this quilt. The first is unknown. Every yellow and blue patch is my work with hand dyed weld and indigo, covering a stain and a tear. Time to take this up close again and mend. I’ve washed and inspected this beloved quilt again for new tears and weak points. We what we love.

06/26/2023

Day 3 of at we leaned the herringbone stitch and underlaid patch. Good for when you need a patch on both sides. Rainy days are good for waffle breakfasts.

06/23/2023

Oversewn Patch on Day 2 of class on “ , Repair & Ornamentation.” When we create a classroom that is intentionally Black and unabashedly q***r, we can all teach and all learn. The oversewn patch is excellent for pattern matching. We are using it in our mending sampler. We are all

06/23/2023

Day 1 of class “ , Repair & Ornamentation” in the books. We know we are welcome when has both a disco ball and a great blue heron here with us. So grateful. We are all

06/11/2023

Jump in!! installation “THEY DID NOY KNOW WE WERE SEEDS” is open at the Parker Hill branch of . A celebration of . seedlings from our plant project with grown by . The seedlings were given out to grow at home and from the top of the installation, becoming her hair. In most cultures indigo is encountered first as a healing plant. May it be so for us too. With support from

05/11/2023

Double sided : over patching and under patching are two techniques we’ll practice at the retreat June 21-25. Deadline for registration is coming up May 15 so sign up now.

03/01/2023

I’ve been this tiny worn spot through a 90 minute meeting tonight. It takes a long time to repair well.

01/18/2023

Thursday! Thursday 1/19 at 7:30pm Vernée Wilkinson and are teaching and facilitating an online conversation for about mending and women's work of repair. Who gets to make art and who is forced to repair? You do need to register to join the conversation at the . Join us!

12/20/2022

Big News & Previews! Workshop Announcement for 2023 at Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program. A Week-Long workshop on Mending as repair, centered in Black and Q***r Pedagogy, with Laura Everett & Vernée Wilkinson teaching. We start with the conviction that we are all worthy of repair. Registration opens in January!