Our Founder.
Sandy’s Story.
Just about fifteen years ago, I invited a group of women to my house for a knitting circle. We met one time a month, and as time went on, we began to share our stories. We cried and we laughed ... it was our "Hang Night".
I began to dream of a "place" where I could invite these women to be able to get away from their world as they know it. I wanted to provide a way for them to be away from the dirt in their lives, for an hour or a day; a sanctuary away from hurt, fear, the media; a place where their minds could rest enough to be able to express their emotions by using Art as a therapeutic avenue for healing.
I want to focus on women who are hurting and heavy with their circumstances; women who have been through the kind of trauma that we don't like to talk about ... the stuff we find hidden under the household "rug" or in the "closet". Each one of us could reach back through the haze of secrecy and shame, and could remember someone in our own family who has been through trauma and pain. The circumstances will vary, of course. Abuse, whether emotional or physical; rejection in every aspect of life's relationships, from the very first time we hopped out of our cocoon to face this world. I want these women to feel they have a safe place to come to, without the dirt of their world, or even the dust. I want them to find a new kind of magical "dust", to enable them to not only pick their heads up, but to open their wings and fly!
There is not one individual who can say they have a perfect life; that they are perfect. I believe that I can show these women that, in their brokenness, they are beautiful individuals, who, BECAUSE OF their brokenness, can in turn help other women who are broken.