With thread and needle, come healing
UAB artist in residence Lillis Taylor combats anxiety at the UAB Women and Infants Center with her weapon of choice: wooden embroidery hoops.
In downtown Birmingham on most Tuesdays, a handful of women embroider gold and red thread in and out of white cloth to form the plump shape of Winnie the Pooh and his honey pot. Other women try their hand at Minnie Mouse, “Lion King” characters, Hello Kitty, some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a scene from “Lilo and Stitch.” But it’s the baby names stitched in cursive lettering the women and families here prize most.
“A visible change will take over the room, and all the women get a very quiet and singular focus. It’s therapeutic,” Taylor said
Taylor is an example of one of the artists in residence at UAB, all part of a program in UAB’s Institute for Arts in Medicine (AIM). Started in 2013, the artists in residence offer their professional art experience to the patients, family and staff. Taylor specifically provides women of the High-Risk Obstetrics unit the opportunity to learn a new skill and talk with the other parents once a week.
For some of the women, two hours out of their rooms and away from their anxiety-filled days can be what makes the difference in finding some mental stability and comfort. But also, as pregnant and at-risk Latoya Carlisle said, “It’s the only thing we can do.”
For several weeks, she has been counting down her pregnancy on bed rest and cross-stitching Disney characters to make pillows for her unborn son.
“Every time I do it my blood pressure goes way down. It’s like 101 — I’m just chilling, relaxing,” Carlisle said.
Taylor said two years ago she found a sort of family emerged during their weekly cross-stitching class. Taylor and her cross-stitch partner provide printed out, ready-to-use character outlines, but the more artistically inspired women also customize their own designs.
She then takes the finished cross-stitch patterns home, stuffs them with fluff and uses a sewing machine to make pillows and blankets. Taylor said she prefers the meditative quality of hand sewing because sewing machines can be intimidating.
“Sewing is very slow,” she said. “But also there’s room to cut up and laugh and talk to someone in a similar situation as you.”
‘A little family’
For a lot of women, Taylor said it can be lonely and difficult because they don’t have any family in the area. It’s common for women across the U.S. to come to UAB for treatment or at the Women and Infants Center, so the artists in residence provide an outlet for the isolation and anxiety that comes with the situation.
“At first, I was really stressed out. I’m still worried but not super stressed about every little thing,” Stajah Hazel said, whose surviving twin baby was born 1 pound and 6 ounces. She said her cervix wasn’t strong enough to carry both of the babies.
When the baby becomes the patient, as in Hazel’s case, the baby is often monitored in a temperature controlled setting where the mother can stay 24 hours a day, which Taylor said women often do for sometimes weeks or even months at a time.
“I’m afraid to leave my baby because of all the complications, even complications in the middle of the night,” Hazel said. “If I stay in that room I go nuts, but I feel like a bad mom if I leave.”
Hazel had her first daughter while inside a truck while traveling with her husband in California, where they lived. After being discharged, two days later she gave birth to the baby she calls her surviving “miracle son.”
She traveled first to the University of Alabama in Huntsville and then to UAB so her baby could receive proper care. She knew no one in Alabama, and her husband had to continue his job as a trucker, so she came here alone.
“Our [sewing] group kind of became a little family,” Hazel said.
She has since completed several Winnie the Pooh-themed blankets.
More than a hundred families or women are usually at the Women and Infant Center, but only about a dozen or fewer women usually come to the cross-stitching sessions on Tuesday, Taylor said.
Taylor often spends her Wednesdays and Thursdays checking in all the women staying in the hospital, handing out much-needed materials and extending the invite if they haven’t heard of it. She said some women prefer to cross-stitch in their room, which is why she checks up with materials.
“When you learn a completely new skill, it increases self-confidence,” said UAB Director of Arts in Medicine Kimberly Kirklin. “Many of the people were not sewers, but after they spent weeks and months at the hospital, they were able to make beautiful quilts.”
Ministry of presence
UAB AIM is a collaboration between UAB Medicine and the Alys Stephens Center in its 20th season. The artists in residence program is in its third year, but Kirklin said they’ve worked with almost all the artists more than five years, and AIM served more than 10,000 patients, families and staff last year.
In total, seven artists in residence serve UAB Hospital, with each specializing in different areas such as bedside storytelling, dance, visual arts, creative writing, music, theater and sewing. Kirklin said everyone strives to address the needs of the mind and the spirit.
“It’s all about something unexpected and out of the ordinary. We want to provide an experience that enhances healing,” she said.
AIM is a relatively new field, Kirklin said, only existing for the last 30 years. The benefits so far include positive distractions, stress reduction, mood enhancements, reduction of time in the hospital and the reduction of pain medications. But Kirklin made clear the distinctions between artists in residence and licensed or registered creative arts therapists. While licensed arts therapists pursue particular therapeutic goals for patients, the artists in residence are professional artists who have been trained to work in the health care environment.
“Plus, this way they can make something for their babies and tell them one day ‘I made this while you were in the hospital,’ which is something that most people can’t say,” Kirklin said.