Artist Statement

Rooted in experiences of birth, motherhood, caregiving, illness, and loss, my work explores the body as a living site of memory, relationship, and transformation. Through drawing and textile processes, I ask how moments of physical vulnerability reshape the inner life and what it means to inhabit a body across a lifetime. These intimate encounters inform my ongoing inquiry into the relationship between body and spirit. For me, the body is the place where spirit is formed.

I extend drawing beyond the page through weaving, knitting, sewing, and mending, where line becomes thread and the work inhabits physical space. Drawing becomes a loving act of depicting the outer form of those I love and care for: a child, a parent, in health, sickness, or at the end of life. Drawing and textiles become inseparable in both form and meaning, mirroring the relationship between body and spirit. Cloth and thread function as both material and metaphor, expressing connection, tension, protection, vulnerability, and repair. The repetitive gestures of handwork also extend into daily life, becoming a way of holding time and transforming long hours of waiting into a quiet rhythm in which each stitch becomes a woven prayer.

Luba Shapiro Grenader