An Embroiderer’s Perspective on Encounters with Beauty
A screenshot from how this article appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of VIGIL, available for purchase here
By Lindsey Weishar
Mikaela Heal’s love for embroidery grew out of her talent for painting and sketching, inspiring her after her freshman year of college to start Tangle and Poke, an embroidery shop on Etsy. Her shop is named for what Mikaela calls the “raw truth” of embroidery — “tangled thread” and “poked fingers.”
Mikaela began Tangle and Poke by earning commissions on embroidered images of saints. “I discovered that sacred art is really the subject matter I love creating the most,” she shares. “Since then, I’ve been playing with embroidery thread as the medium in which to capture the lighting, texture, precision and motion…and all on my favorite subject matter: the saints and varying other religious icons.”
Mikaela calls her process of layering stitches “thread-painting” and has found echoes of her relationship with God in this method. “With embroidery perhaps more than painting, every single stitch has to be intentionally placed and chosen, and most pieces of mine have hundreds, if not thousands of stitches layered on top of one other to create a certain texture or depth,” she explains. “It really strikes me how intimately and intentionally God as Creator has stitched together all being…every insect, every organ, every human.”
A firm believer in Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky’s statement, “beauty will save the world,” Mikaela has personally experienced the tangibility of beauty and its ability to heal, and this understanding inspires her mission of “sharing the faith through decorative and functional beauty.”
“That really is the special power of beauty. It pierces you in a way that you probably cannot understand and then lingers and refuses to be dismissed,” Mikaela says.
“Despite so many attacks on truth and the overwhelming feeling that evil has won the fight over good, the divine light nevertheless manages to sneak into our day through sparkling facets of beauty to grip souls that do not believe and sustain those that do.”
Mikaela’s embroidery actively reveals beauty’s ability to feed and sustain the hungry soul. She sees her work in conversation with beauty. “Though my artwork is not as jaw-dropping as many of the old churches in Europe are, I pray that in a smaller way my embroidery can ignite conversations from curious onlookers or be another opportunity to encounter beauty in the home.”
Check out Mikaela’s creations on Etsy, and follow her on Instagram @tangleandpoke.
