September 2021

I always told my children when things went wrong “If it never rained, you wouldn’t appreciate the sunshine.” So to try to cheer up our battled and bruised Louisiana, we decided to add all of our beautiful and happy suzanis to the website. You just can’t look at a suzani and feel sad. And whether you’ve been through a hurricane or not, who wants to be sad?

As you know our beloved Louisiana has been slammed again, Ida-clare. But if you look for the positive in the whole disaster, the state’s heart and soul is ever so impressive. And the levees held in New Orleans, so restaurants and shops have jumped through miraculous hoops and are now open and anxiously awaiting the return of visitors.

Fortunately Baby Viz was home with us in North Louisiana for the storm along with all of our NOLA refugees. We were all wringing our hands while watching the Weather Channel. Seeing the horrifying devastation South of New Orleans (where some levees were breached), and secondly worrying about the Magazine Street pillows mildewing over time with no electricity, Sarah immediately donned her cape to try to save the day.

Sarah drove the 100 miles to the Jackson Costco and probably bought all of their batteries and survival necessities such as headlamps, bleach, tarps, gas cans, beef jerky, etc. With no room to see out of the rear view mirror, she waved to me from the driver's seat while blasting “Highway to the Danger Zone” which made us all laugh even though we wanted to cry.

She picked up a friend who stayed for the storm, drove farther south to Chauvin and delivered the essential goods to many people. While it was just one load, the gratitude was overwhelming and she said that her heart was swelling. Then she went back through the city to move half of the pillows to a generator-run home and the other half she brought back to St. Joseph. (While worrying about pillows at a time like this seems quite trivial, it would probably have taken at least 2 years to produce that many and of course, most of them are one-of-a-kind.)

Sarah also rescued the suzanis we had just received from Uzbekistan and we were able to photograph the whole lot and can now offer them to you on our website. In my 27 years of studying textiles, these are the most spectacular suzanis I have ever seen. We are so lucky to be one of the few reps in the world for these works of art and they add such joy to our shop and website.