Juneteenth marks liberation, survival, resistance, and cultural continuity.

For many of us rooted in Coastal Carolina traditions, cloth carries memory. In the Low Country, indigo carries memory. Sewing, dyeing, weaving, quilting, mending, and handwork carry the fingerprints of ancestors who created beauty and identity despite displacement, enslavement, poverty, and erasure.

For me, this challenge honors those traditions through the daily practice of making and writing. Indigo as medicine wasn’t transferred to me in a workshop setting because it was always about more than the color blue. Slow, low-tech, natural dyeing in Mason jars and a crockpot becomes the backdrop for Indigo As Medicine: Living The Blues, Healing Through Cloth. My story of the Divine Mercy of a second chance after a near-death experience that forced me to heal childhood trauma and accumulated grief.

I celebrate Juneteenth not only as a symbol of freedom but, more importantly, for the cultural knowledge it preserves. More of our culture has survived than many people realize, especially in textiles. Sewing, quilting, weaving, basket making, embroidery, crochet, knitting, beadwork, all of it, tells our story. Plus, we’ve got music, dance, storytelling, cooking, fellowship, and community to ground us. Each sunrise is a new beginning, another opportunity to do better at holding onto faith, hope, and love. 

The challenge invites me to slow down enough to witness transformation:

• By massaging cloth until it becomes saturated with color
• By embedding live plants and flowers into bundles and steaming, causing them to release hidden pigments
• By using sunlight to alter fabric over time in a glass jar with dye material
• By letting my hands learn patience again
• By performing creative rituals until they become a healing practice