Helen Geglio
Women’s PPE: Wound Care, 2020
Embroidered and stiffened cotton, found domestic textiles 20 x 17 x 4"
These sculptural breastplates of women’s personal protective equipment (PPE) present a visual testament to the resilience of women during trying times. Somehow, amidst challenges and difficulties, we manage to clothe ourselves in an armor of fortitude, preserve a sense of humor and perspective, and then face forward. Afterall, women are so often the heavy lifters for real and sustainable change.
Helen Geglio
Women’s PPE: Breastplate, 2020
Embroidered and stiffened linen 20 x 18 x 4"
These sculptural breastplates of women’s personal protective equipment (PPE) present a visual testament to the resilience of women during trying times. Somehow, amidst challenges and difficulties, we manage to clothe ourselves in an armor of fortitude, preserve a sense of humor and perspective, and then face forward. Afterall, women are so often the heavy lifters for real and sustainable change.
Helen Geglio
Wisdom Cloak: Invisible Visionary, 2020
Wool, cotton, small objects, hand embroidered and stitched 52 x 58"
The Wisdom Cloak series is a tribute to the accumulated knowledge, experience and maturity of women, so often unrecognized and rarely celebrated. A primitive needle is sewn into each cloak, to honor the generations of women who have gone before us, stitching paths to a world of strength and beauty.
Helen Geglio
What She Carried: Hussifs, 2019
Cotton, linen, found domestic textiless, hand embroidered and stitched. 23 x 26 x 4" display
A hussif is a rolled sewing kit. These three hussifs tell stories of women who traveled to the plains and prairies of the Midwest during our nation’s time of westward expansion. Leaving the familiar landscapes of home, they found an endless expanse of grassland, isolated and strangely beautiful. Inspired by diary entries written from a sod house on a Nebraska homestead, I have created visual narratives of women uprooted.
Helen Geglio
Recollected 3, 2019
Cotton, linen, found domestic linens, hand embroidered and stitched. 54 x 30"
Recollected is a visual narrative about the lost provenance of domestic handwork. I have collected so many lovely handmade things, crafted by unknown hands and found in closets and boxes, sold in lots or pieces at estate sales and flea markets. In the stream of time, the maker is lost to memory and all that remains are the threads of her labors.
Helen Geglio
Territorial Road: Crosses and Losses, 2018
Linen, cotton, hand embroidered and stitched 48 x 42"
The Territorial Road is a series of work inspired by a diary entry, written by Susan Brackney Clayton in 1890. From a sod house on a homestead near Elton, Nebraska, her words tell of beauty in the expanse of land and sky, the constantly howling wind, loneliness and a deep longing for a life left behind in Indiana. This piece is called Crosses and Losses, after a patchwork pattern dating back to the time of westward expansion, speaking to hardship and the isolation of a woman uprooted.
Helen Geglio
Coin Op Laundry, 2017
Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched 44 x41"
I found a dozen white cotton shirts, wadded in the corner of a forgotten box. Wrinkled thieves of time, happily abandoned for permanent press.
Helen Geglio
Out Loud, 2017
Cotton, linen, found school uniform shirt, hand embroidered and stitched 44" x 46"
Helen Geglio
A History of Toil: Marge’s Pickledish, 2015
Cotton, linen, vintage table linens, hand embroidered and stitched 32" x 37"
Helen Geglio
Femoral Fracture: A Stumble, 2014
Cotton, linen, hand embroidered and stitched 49" x 34"
