Life & Work with Agapè Jasimine Pennywell of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Agapè Jasimine Pennywell.

Hi Agapè Jasimine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story really begins with a lifelong relationship with creativity. I have always experienced art as more than something we make; it is a way of seeing, processing, connecting, and understanding ourselves. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, and my own artistic practice has continued to evolve through textiles, contemporary quilting, fashion, collage, sewing, storytelling, and wearable art.

As I became a mother and moved through the different seasons of my own life, I began to see how easily adults, especially mothers, can lose touch with that part of themselves that simply wants to explore, play, imagine, and create. Motherful grew out of that realization.

I founded Motherful Arts in 2022 because I wanted to create spaces where mothers could reconnect with their creative spirit and remember that creativity is not a luxury or something reserved for “artists.” It is a human resource. It is available to all of us.

Today, Motherful Arts Atlanta is growing into a creative community centered around that philosophy. Through guided art projects, sewing and upcycling, collage, story quilts, self-portraiture, movement, nature experiences, creative gatherings, and ceremonies, I help people create the conditions where they can become more free and more connected to their authentic selves.

My work has also expanded beyond traditional art instruction. I think of what I do as a holistic creative practice, using art, movement, storytelling, nature, and community as doorways into creative flow. Ultimately, I want people to leave an experience with me feeling like they have remembered something about themselves that they had forgotten.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it has definitely not been a smooth road, and honestly, I don’t think it is supposed to be.

One of the biggest struggles has been learning to trust that the way I naturally see and experience the world has value. My work crosses so many boundaries: art, education, textiles, spirituality, movement, storytelling, community building, and motherhood. It doesn’t always fit neatly into one category, and there have been moments when I’ve questioned whether I was doing “enough” or whether I needed to make my work look more conventional.

But I’ve come to understand that the things that once seemed difficult to explain are actually what make the work unique.

There have also been the very real challenges of building something community-centered while being an artist and a mother. I am constantly balancing vision with resources, time, family, funding, space, and the realities of everyday life.

What has kept me moving is the response from people when they experience the work. When someone who says, “I’m not creative,” makes something beautiful with their own hands and suddenly sees themselves differently, that is confirmation for me.

I’ve learned that the work isn’t about creating perfect circumstances. It’s about creating enough space for people to experience themselves differently.

That has become a major part of my philosophy: freedom can begin with something as simple as giving yourself permission to make something.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work is centered around one question: What happens when we give ourselves permission to be fully creative?

Through Motherful Arts Atlanta, I create guided experiences that help people enter that space of creative freedom and flow. I teach sewing, upcycling, collage, fabric arts, and contemporary quilting, but the finished object is only part of the experience. I’m much more interested in what happens to a person while they’re creating it.

I incorporate movement, dance, nature, storytelling, gathering, and guided ceremonies into my creative practice because I see each of these as different pathways into the same place: freedom and connection to the authentic self.

Motherful Arts isn’t simply about teaching people how to make art. It’s about helping people remember that they are creative beings.

That belief is at the heart of everything I do. I want creativity to become functional in people’s everyday lives, not something we only visit occasionally, but something we can reach for whenever we need connection, expression, perspective, or freedom.

One of my signature offerings is my Language of Fabric work, where I teach people to use textiles as a form of personal expression and self-discovery. Through guided self-portrait experiences, participants explore how to represent not simply what they look like, but who they are beneath the surface. This work is also connected to my Hooligan Method, which explores contemporary quilted self-portraiture as a way of revealing the depth and complexity of the individual. My Hooligan collection is an archival body of these wearable and textile-based self-portraits.

Story quilts are another important aspect of my practice. With these, I guide people in creating visionary tapestries, almost like fabric-based vision boards, that allow them to explore and tell stories through imagery, color, texture, and collected materials. Fabric becomes a vessel for memory, family history, identity, dreams, grief, celebration, and transformation. The quilt becomes not only something to look at, but something that holds and communicates a personal story.

What sets my work apart is that I don’t believe creativity belongs in a separate compartment of our lives. Art can be a way of parenting. It can be a way of communicating. It can be a way of processing our experiences. It can be a way of building community. It can be a way of coming home to ourselves.

I’m most proud of creating spaces where people who may not identify as artists can discover that they actually have a creative language of their own.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, I was curious, imaginative, observant, and always interested in making something out of what was around me. I have always had a tendency to look at ordinary things and imagine what else they could become.

My mother also played an important role in shaping the way I see objects and heirlooms. She preserved clothing, hats, trinkets, and belongings from generations of our family, so I grew up surrounded by pieces of our history. Having access to those objects taught me early on that the things we keep can carry memory, meaning, and a sense of the people who came before us.

That way of thinking has followed me throughout my entire life. I’ve never been particularly interested in accepting that something has only one purpose or that there is only one way to do something. A piece of fabric can become a garment, a sculpture, a story, or a memory. A discarded object can become material. A movement can become a form of expression. A gathering of people can become a creative ritual.

I believe I was always a bit of a world-builder.

I was also very connected to people and to the stories they carried. That sensitivity to people’s inner worlds has become a huge part of my artistic practice. I am fascinated by what makes each person uniquely themselves and by the things we often don’t have words for.

Looking back, I can see that the artist, teacher, mother, storyteller, and community builder I am today were all present in that younger version of me. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

Now, a lot of my work is about helping other people find that childlike, freer part of themselves again, the part that knew how to imagine before we were taught to limit ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://motherful.org
• Instagram: @MOTHERFULARTS