We had the good fortune of connecting with Heather Schulte and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Heather, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
My work/life balance has changed a lot over time, largely due to having children. Our family life was able to be supported financially by my partner’s job, and I wanted to be at home to care for our kids when they were little. We also moved a lot, which made keeping any kind of steady employment (even self-employment) very difficult at the time (the dawning of things like Etsy). As our kids grew, and we settled in one place, I have been able to focus more on launching my art career. It is difficult to balance family life and art, as both can be rather unpredictable, and event timing is often in conflict. Regardless, children (and non-work life) require a lot of care, and it’s always a shifting balance. I look at balance as motion–balance is NOT fixed–it’s always responding and adjusting to various circumstances. As such, it takes a lot of work, which means you need adequate rest, too. Loose, nimble limbs and strong core principles support good balance.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My work utilizes a mixture of textiles, text, and technology to consider systems of communication and how they shape and are shaped by relationships. Sometimes this results in a weaving or embroidery, or a poem, or a code script that randomly generates a knitting pattern. Lately, I’ve been exploring codes and coded communication systems, like braille and binary code, to look at language from a visual and abstract perspective, looking for patterns that shape how we interact. I’m particularly interested in systems that consist of simple or minimal base elements and grow into infinite complexity when numbers and scale increase (language, patterning systems, etc.).

Right now, I’m in the midst of a big, long-term project that brings a lot of these themes together. It’s a collaborative embroidery project called “Stitching the Situation,” which I began in March 2020, and now involves over 250 people across the US. At its simplest, it is a data visualization, where each COVID case and death reported by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource center is represented by individual blue and red stitches (respectively), organized by date. However, by utilizing a wide variety of values and hues of blue and red threads, over a field of thousands upon thousands of stitches, each person can create patterns, images, or text to express something of their own perspective during this time. This adds an additional layer of story telling, and when multiplied by hundreds of people, we have a very complex set of stories and perspectives, all told through simple cross stitches.

None of this has been easy–applying for grants and funding support has become more difficult and more competitive over the past couple years, and space is extremely expensive. Add to that the pandemic itself, and here we are. It’s a mess! I address challenges by making lots of lists–whether lists of upcoming events, deadlines, or opportunities, projects to work on, or people to contact for new opportunities. I break things down into smaller, actionable tasks, and do at least one thing every day (at least every work day)–send and email, order supplies, etc., even the smallest task gets a check mark, and all those small tasks add up.

I also look back over a year, two, five, and survey where I’ve been and what I’ve done, especially when I’m feeling frustrated or stuck. It helps to see the successes, and even looking over applications that weren’t accepted sometimes lead to new ideas, or ways to edit for a new application.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I dedicate this shoutout to my parents. Both have been supportive of me and my brother, and have worked hard to provide us opportunities that they did not have, all while teaching us the value of a job well done (paid or not), caring for things and people, and generosity.

Website: www.heatherdschulte.com

Instagram: @heatherdschulte

Other: www.stitchingthesituation.com @stitchingthesituation

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