Stitches humming like the universe: Lindsay Lion Lord at the Fisch Haus

A raw wind blew me up the concrete stairs at the Fisch Haus and into the entryway. As I walked through the doorway, widening my eyes to take in more light, a stunning quilt came into view: “Gifts from the Past.” It wrapped itself around me — not literally, of course — and I felt its comfort, vibrating with female imagery and energy.

With precise stitches and golden cloth, the quilt gives life to six upturned crescent moons brimming with stars, floating above what feels like a joyful fountain of arches or roots plunging deep into soil, expertly rendered in colorful thread. The background, layers and layers of circles on hand-dyed cotton, drew me closer and made me feel safe, surrounded and protected by a nurturing force. And all those stitches were subtly humming — complex yet direct, immeasurable, vast — like the universe. I was warm. Secure.

This magic is the work of Lindsay Lion Lord, a self-described “neurodivergent art witch” based in Wichita. Her solo show, “An Infinite Container,” is on view at the Fisch Haus, 524 Commerce St. in Wichita. It marks the end of her Master of Fine Arts program in fibres & material practices from Concordia University in Montreal. The final days to view the exhibition coincide with the annual Knob Festival of New Music, which runs from 8-10 p.m. every night from January 29-31. This splendid, otherworldly combination of sound and vision promises to be the ideal way to experience both the concerts and the artist’s fiber masterworks. 

Lord dedicated “An Infinite Container” to the stars, which once were a cherished source of comfort. She has not been able to see them since 2020 because Lord is legally blind. 

“My vision is much worse in low lighting and at night,” she explained. “I can't see (the stars) anymore, and that's heartbreaking to me. I grew up in Winfield, and I would drive five minutes from my house and watch the stars by myself. Being a teenager is so hard, and it was a way that I had some emotional space.”

Originally, her art practice focused on drawing and painting. Lord shifted to working with textiles before she learned about her vision loss, drawn “intuitively towards a medium that I think is better for my vision,” she said. 

“In drawing class, you're relying so much on measuring everything with your eyes, and you need peripheral vision for that.”

Retinitis pigmentosa, a condition she and other members of her family were born with, has severely diminished Lord’s peripheral vision. But, she notes, “I have strong central vision — it's just very limited.”

Fiber work allows Lord to work within that limited vision range, yet the medium she embraced is far more complex than putting pencil to paper. The design and creation of a given work may include any or all the following skills: creating botanically sourced dyes; dyeing textiles and thread; cutting and piecing the quilt; quilting multiple layers, sometimes with batting; embroidery; beading; painting; and batik. Lord executes these techniques up close, for she is able to view only a truncated circle of the quilt at a time. The five works in the show are the result of an extremely labor-intensive practice, each taking a minimum of six months of eight-hour workdays to complete.

“This sounds strange, but my process is very intuitive, but also highly planned,” Lord said. She begins by creating a grid or “map” that determines what goes where. Math is fundamental to the process, although Lord denies having “conscious math skills.

“I'm doing very basic math,” she said. “I refer to it as visual math. It's probably not a thing, but I'm measuring with my eye, and I'll come up with a little algorithm.” 

For some works, the map is very specific, such as the one she designed for “Pluto Return.” “I knew where I wanted to put every single piece. But also, with more colorful areas like the clouds and sunset, I found myself being more improvisational.”

The vivid piece is grounded by earth and grass-toned hills, imposing with a glowing crown of light from the rising — or setting — sun. Boiling with thunder clouds, the sky is a moving wave of purples, blues, and blacks as stars emerge at the top of the piece. A red snake lifts its massive body up from the soil. Is it fiercely rising to meet, or being violently struck by, a long, jagged lightning bolt?  The top and bottom of the jarring piece is framed with pointed text from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” A heartbeat issues forth from the work, anxious and exalted. It tells a story of both trauma and growth, driven by tiny, furious, exact stitches.

“Signs and Wonders” features a luminous shooting star blazing across the somber gallery wall and strikes like a revelation — an unexpected awareness that things are brighter than they seem. Pieced from hundreds of yellow and orange rectangular strips, the radiant quilt seems to be traveling forward, propelled by the fiery energy of the artist’s color choices, the sleek textile pieces, those shimmering stitches, and a passionate dedication to the universe. 

Raised as an evangelical Christian, Lord experienced, “some hard religious traumatic experiences, and so I didn't find that framework to be safe anymore. But I've always been very spiritual. I connect deeply with the earth and with space. The dedication of the show sounds very poetic, but it's very accurate. I feel connected to deep space and to the stars.

“They have this feeling of infinity and expansiveness that I used to feel in church: very beautiful and profound and connecting to everything and everyone, plants, animals, humans … every living being and molecule.”

The Details

“An Infinite Container” by Lindsay Lion Lord
December 5, 2025-January 31, 2026, at Fisch Haus, 524 Commerce St. in Wichita

“An Infinite Container” is on view during the Knob Festival of New Music, aka Knob Fest, which runs from 8-10 p.m. January 29-31 at the Fisch Haus. The annual celebration of new and experimental music coincides with the final days to view this collection of compelling, large-scale works. 

The artist’s husband David Lord will perform “Music for an Infinite Container,” a new work based on the exhibition, at 8 p.m. on Friday during Knob Fest along with the Fisch Haus Philharmonic: Ellen Johnson Mosley on alto flute, Timothy Jones and Sage Rosales on violin, Ruben Balboa on viola,  Susan Mayo on cello, Mark Foley on double bass, Jackson Graham on vibraphone, Andy Slater on marimba and Lord on guitar.

Lindsay Lion Lord is the Knob Fest 2026 featured artist, and she created the posters, tees, and other branding for the event. 

If you can’t make it out to the Fisch Haus this weekend, “An Infinite Container” will be one of the first exhibitions at Envision Arts’ new space in Wichita’s Delano District. It opens on March 6 and runs through April 24.

A First Friday art reception and grand opening celebration will take place from 4-9 p.m March 6 at Envision Arts Center, 535 W. Douglas Ave., Suite 160.

Teri Mott is a writer and actor in Wichita, Kansas, where she covers the arts as a critic and feature writer. She is a co-founder of The SHOUT.

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