“She Who Burns and Does Not Consume”

Every stitch is a temperature. Every colour is a degree of pain endured. The gold here is not decoration. It is what remains when the fire takes everything except the need to hold out.

She did not choose to be strong. She wanted to be a tender flower, not a stone. But the house rested on her, the children, everyone close by. And she compressed into a crystal, because otherwise she would have flown apart in pieces.

This is not a triumph. It is a limit. One more degree and there is a crack. She burns not because it is beautiful. She endures because “if not me, then who”.

And here lies the greatest injustice: ice melts in spring, returns to water, to softness. But a diamond stays a stone. Forever beautiful. Forever hard. Forever not what it wanted to be.

I did not embroider her as a hymn to strength. Every stitch is an attempt to lighten her load, a prayer asking the world: “Take this burden off women. Let them be soft and tender again. Do not leave them alone with war, fire and pressure. Give them the right to become flowers…”

• MATERIAL

  Organza, DMC cotton
• TECHNIQUE

  Double-sided stitch
• SIZE

  35 × 35 cm
• COUNTRY

  Ukraine