She Retired as a Nurse Caring for Children with Chronic Illness, Now the Real Healing Starts
Ria Hawks teaches best by showing. As she sits at the wooden, two-pedal weaving loom and guides the reed back and forth, her instruction takes on a melodic, chant-like cadence. I push it towards me. I push it away. I change my feet.
Once a student takes their seat at the loom, Hawks says that her goal is to help them get comfortable enough to find their own rhythm.
Hawks has led scores of children, as well as adults, on the loom, and is the co-founder of SAORI Arts NYC, a non-profit that teaches people with disabilities and chronic illness how to weave as a means of healing and self-expression.
The idea for the non-profit came to her around the same time that she was preparing to retire. After a difficult and emotionally demanding career as pediatric oncology nurse, caring for children with blood disorders, cancer, and other critical conditions, she was ready to leave the hospital where she worked, but not yet ready to leave the children and the connections.
Around this same time, Hawks had a setback. She broke her leg and was confined to a “big mother of a cast.” To cheer her up, a friend invited her to try a “zen weaving” class. Initially, Hawks was unenthusiastic. “I went in there with a totally negative attitude. I thought, zen weaving?…I’m not that kind of person, trust me. I have it internally, but don’t sell it to me,” Hawks said.
Once in the studio and seated at the loom, she maneuvered the two-foot pedal by alternating her working leg. By the time she finished that day, her mood had improved. “I could see it was really good for me,” she said.
So she kept going back — every Saturday for the next six months. “The first couple of times at the studio, she was very quiet,” said Yukako Satone, the owner of the studio, Loop of the Loom. As they got to know each other, Satone observed how “open and friendly and funny” she was.
It wasn’t the first time that Satone had seen the therapeutic power of her “zen weaving” take place. Satone had studied in Osaka, Japan with Misao Jo, the pioneering textile artist and creator of the SAORI method, who trained thousands in the art of freestyle weaving that embraces imperfections and spontaneity.
The simplified features of the loom that the late Jo designed with her son made it accessible to both novices and those with disabilities.
Although Satone had initially encouraged Hawks to bring SAORI to the hospital, Hawks had at first resisted. My first thought was, ‘I’m a nurse, what do you want from me?’” said Hawks. But Satone donated a loom for Hawks to use at the hospital anyway.
“I’m like, ‘did I ask for this?” said Hawks.
Nevertheless, Hawks took the loom on the road. One of the first places she brought the loom was Irving Pavilion, which is part of the Columbia University Medical Center — or “IP7,” the seventh floor oncology hematology outpatient clinic where she worked.
At first, she kept the role of nurse and art therapist as completely separate. When her shift ended, she sometimes weaved “with a few bone marrow patients at the end of the day,” she said.
Then Hawks crossed paths with Nitza Daneli, the director of Hope and Heroes, an organization that partners with the Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Art in Medicine program to provide counseling, support, and integrative therapies to children with a diagnosis and their families.
Hawks saw a path forward; she had a vision of the type of volunteer work she would pursue when she retired.
Ria Hawks teaches an art therapy class at Loop of the Loom in New York City (photo / Emily Mitchell)
After she made her decision, her new work took off. Instead of preparing syringes for chemotherapy, she was setting up the colorful yarns and teaching the weaving method to children who were recovering from or waiting for their treatment.
Soon she acquired aluminum frame looms, which were lightweight and more easily transported. She learned to only use synthetic yarns, which were less likely to carry bacteria.
Eventually a dedicated studio space was created in the hospital, which she shared with Daneli.
Now, Hawks could focus on the one-on-one relationships with patients, and less on the tightly ordered protocols that govern working within a hospital.
One patient was KC, an 18 year-old with lymphoma who was in isolation after a bone marrow transplant. KC had bandages wrapped around sores on her feet and refused to walk. Her use of the loom was an important part of her recovery and physical therapy, Hawks said, as it encouraged her to sit up, which expanded her lungs, and encouraged her to use her arms and legs.
“Her use of empathy is just so instrumental to creating space, and changing your perception of time, effortlessly,” Daneli said.
Over time, Hawks began creating “legacy work,” weavings made by the child that could be a final gift to their parents, even if the child did not know it yet. Alternatively, a parent might take one of their child’s belongings, like a onesie or a baby blanket, and incorporate it into a weaving.
“There’s certainly tears woven into those pieces,” Daneli said.
Throughout the pandemic, Hawks has hosted classes over Zoom. She’s also been busy upgrading the SAORI Arts NYC web presence, and working to obtain grants that will allow her and her small team to continue the work.
On a recent weekday, she arrived at Loop of the Loom, wearing a chartreuse tunic, a loosely knit necklace, and a pin made from bauble of yarn that she had placed slightly below her heart. She explained that the pin was originally meant to cover a small hole in the tunic, but that she ultimately liked how it looked.
Since receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, she’s slowly started to return to her pre-pandemic routines, meeting in person with the other SAORI Arts board members, and visiting the studio that drew her into this work in the first place.
The studio, bright and tidy, played classical music over the speakers, which crackled every so often. A wall of nearly arranged rainbow yarns of varying textures extended across the main wall like a beacon.
At the start of the recent weaving class, she had a lot on her mind: headline alerts popped up on her phone, a text reminded her about a grant that could help keep SAORI solvent. But as she settled into a chair by the loom with a student, she exuded calm, focused attention.
She leaned back in her chair to give the student space, but raised her eyes as soon as she sensed she was needed.
Extending a hand to take a piece of string that had fallen astray, she showed the student how to turn an incorrect stitch into a double line.
“See, you made a mistake, but it’s like the coolest thing. That’s the whole point really. You didn’t pay attention for a reason,” Hawks told the student.
She laughed, adding, “That’s how you go on in life like I think. There’s a lot of philosophies that you extend in weaving, from living your life.”
