the art

Ashley Larkin’s textiles serve as maps to freedom and stories of liberation. Drawing from a family legacy of sewing passed down through generations, her creative practice is also deeply informed by her work as a therapist and meditation practitioner. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, and originally from the mountains of Virginia, Larkin first engaged textiles as a fashion designer in New York City.

After a decade-long hiatus from formal studio practice to study the art of psychotherapy and to embrace motherhood, today, her quilts serve as a journey back to her roots. Her tapestries begin as intuitive expressions of her spiritual studies, transforming both personal and collective experiences into tactile narratives. Often portrait-like, her contemporary quilts use color, texture, and form to explore the themes she has spent years witnessing behind her desk as a therapist—mindfulness, impermanence, relationships, and personal agency.

Larkin’s work seeks to be an empathetic witness to the human experience, inviting viewers on a layered journey of healing and remembrance.