Stitching Back Together

Willa Conway

21 Feb 2025 — 4 min read

Amy Conway, Rupture and Repair #1. Dry pigments with natural binder on raw linen 72” x 44”

Last month, my daughter turned one. As fate would have it, my first work baby, The Weavers Project, came to a close a month before I gave birth. Coming into a completely new shape as a parent on the heels of closing a big chapter of work, one that I had tied much of my identity to, felt completely destabilizing.

I felt like I was blown up into a million pieces when I had my daughter. Each part of my container—physical, emotional, spiritual—became disorganized, flung to far away distances. I was simply guts in the wind. No structure to hold me, other than a new name called “Mother” that I did not know how to wear. It was not a form that I could fit into, and I did not know how to call the pieces of myself back so I could meet the everyday demands of my new life.

One year into becoming a mother, I finally feel my parts coming back together. Not all pieces have returned; some pieces are rusty and tarnished. Yet all the needed pieces are here to create this new version of myself. A friend told me that having a child is like finding a new center of gravity, so perhaps some of these loose pieces have become part of my new orbit. It’s different here, but I am beginning to stand with more strength and steadiness.

I start Rupture and Repair here because it is the only place I know to begin, with the personal as a focal point of data collection and lens through which to make sense of this deeply troubled reality we are in. Collaboratively developing the Weavers Project and the everyday leadership training I received from my Black feminist colleagues showed me how essential the work of the interior is for our movements and large scale social change. The interior is the space of the imagination, dreams, emotions, and the body. It is the intimate conversations that we have at the kitchen table, in our bedrooms, or holding hands under a big oak tree. These places of contact and connection tell us much about who we are and what we desire. These personal moments are essential and embedded in our political discourse. Which is another way of saying: they matter.

It is into the interior that I am leaning in regards to my work and practices at this time of deep political chaos, violence, and disorientation. We need spaces to come into contact with ourselves, our souls, our interior landscape, to be able to manage the disregard for humanity that our political environment promotes. I move toward devotion, collective care, and the healing power of taking collective action and interrupting intergenerational and social patterns of harm. As so much of our political, environmental and social reality is blown to pieces, I am working to bring some coherence and support to those working towards justice and wholeness. We all need to find our personal and collective ways to stitch ourselves back together.

I do this through embodied practice, creating space for dreaming and creative practice for myself and others, and through facilitation, coaching and consulting with philanthropic institutions and individual donors. I hope you join me!

Me and my daughter on her first birthday.

✨ My current offerings✨

MOVEMENT SUSTAINABILITY:

In a time of so much chaos and destabilization, join me for a 6-week somatic movement series: RESTORE REGROUND REVIVE. Drawing on my years of practice in somatics, 5 rhythms, Movement for Trauma, Fighting Monkey, and dance, we will use improvisational tasks and guided movement to reconnect to our bodies, our breath, and our sense of agency and play. The hour practice is open to anyone who is wanting to move stuck energy and open up to a sense of aliveness. In these session we will be explore new movement possibilities, which can not only support us physically, but can also show us new ways to move in our lives, in our work, and in our relationships. Classes are $15 per session or $85 for the whole series.

6 weeks ONLINE over zoom begins March 12th-April 16th Wednesdays at 10-11 CT. Sign up here!

RESOURCE MOBILIZATION AND DONOR ORGANIZING :

I currently work with individual donors and institutional organizations in Louisiana and nationally. I have been leading groups of individual donors within Solidaire Network since 2020, where I am currently co-facilitating a Parenting & Wealth circle. I have space for a few more individual and institutional clients invested in transformational donor organizing. I believe that donors and wealthy people have a critical role in movement building work, and I am invested in supporting their learning and leadership. Stay tuned for more offerings for donors I will be announcing in the coming months.

STONEROOT RETREAT:

One way I am continuing to invest in artists and organizers after my work with The Weavers Project is through providing low-cost residency and retreat space for those seeking space for creativity and rest. Stoneroot Retreat is an 18 acre property located in Southern Appalachia in Northern Georgia. We are currently offering sliding scale, 1-2 week residencies for individuals or small groups. Read more about the space and the DIY residencies and sign up here. Stoneroot is magical, healing, restorative, and inspiring—we are so excited to get to share it with our community. You will hear more about retreats and learning opportunities coming from Stoneroot later this year.