About me
Let me introduce myself. I'm Anna.
I’m a daughter, wife, and mother…
I go by Abanas—my artistic name of sorts.
For most of my life, I believed I couldn’t draw, not even a little! In fact, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t pursue a career in teaching.
Instead, I became a railway worker. With a red cap on my head, I dispatched both passenger and freight trains.
In the meantime, I became a ‘Buddy.’ A big friend to a little black-haired girl from a children’s home. We went out for pizza, movies, or just for walks.
Part of this wonderful volunteer program included various lectures and trainings. Through the psychologist who supported us in the program, I learned about hagiotherapy.
It’s a type of group therapy that works with stories from the Bible. My curiosity got the better of me, and I signed up. Every two weeks we met, and nearly everyone shared how their lives were changing. But for me, nothing…
The second to last meeting focused on the story of the blind man Bartimaeus and how people shouted at him to be quiet and not disturb. But Jesus stopped and asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The homework assignment was to ask your own Bartimaeus, the part of you that you’ve tried to silence, what it wants.
My Bart shouted that he wanted to draw. No matter how much I tried to explain that we couldn’t draw, he insisted. Since I needed to be able to report back at the next meeting, I grabbed some paper and a pencil, found a drawing tutorial online, and was amazed by what happened.
I can’t draw… it’s Bartimaeus who can.
I love the mountains, particularly the Liptov region, which is nestled in Slovakia, the country I call home. Even though I grew up in a flat area, my heart has always been drawn to the hills. My holidays were filled with the aromas of Liptov’s mountains, mushrooms, and wild raspberries. Just recently, I revisited the Liptov hills, and the scents were just as I remembered—mountains, forest raspberries, and mushrooms. I spent hours walking and biking up and down the hills, alongside rivers and across bridges…
And it was there, in Liptov, that everything suddenly made sense.
Another creative aspect that entered my life is the making of new pieces of clothing and jewelry from things tucked away at the back of my closet or hanging in thrift stores. This is a gift. What I sew together is not just t-shirts; it’s a patchwork of my past.
My mother had a remarkable talent for creating a cozy home and elegant clothing from materials that were then hard to come by. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of it because illness cut her creativity short far too soon.
I couldn’t even sew on a button. The thought of threading a needle was something I would avoid at all costs. It wasn’t laziness; it was more of a strange aversion, something blocked, tangled in the thread of life.
It all started when I saw an ad for an online course on making jewelry from fabric. I returned to that course page several times, watching in amazement how it affected me, giving me butterflies in my stomach. Then suddenly, the knot in the thread of my life unraveled, and I threaded the needle… and I found it incredibly enjoyable. My mother’s legacy was unlocked. On my work desk, alongside various types of graphic design paper, needles, threads, beads, and pieces of fabric began to appear.
Then I had the idea to combine paper and fabric.
Welcome to my world of colors, images, embroidery threads, fabric scraps… and also computer programs for photo editing that transform an ordinary photo into something extraordinary.
Welcome to the world of Embroidered Photos.
Anna Banas
ICO: 54198569
VAT ID: 1081309515
Adress: c.d. 177, 92545 Hoste, Slovak Republic
Email: anna@stitchartphoto.com
I am not a VAT payer.
