Threads Reclaimed: Grad Student Leah Virsik

GOLDEN GATE XPRESS -- Before coming to graduate school, Leah Virsik quit her demanding job as a graphic designer, a working environment she did not fit in according to Virsik. Virsik, a Master’s student in fine arts, is rediscovering herself through the process of combining her writing with sewing and crocheting, she said. Virsik collects used clothing and scraps of material, writes her thoughts and memories on the fabric, cuts the fabric and either sews or crochets the pieces back together. “The process of working is therapeutic, I record my thoughts and memories on the fabric as a way to get to know who I am. When I am making I am in flow and that’s where I fit,” Virsik said. As the records her thoughts and memories on the fabric she mends together pieces of her life experiences.