How Making Art Helped Them Through Life’s Toughest Moments | Michelle Wilkie, Mia Nel, and Mandi Maneerut

Sometimes, the most honest stories come through fabric, sugar, paper, and quiet moments spent making with your hands. In this article, three artists—Michelle Wilkie, Mia Nel, and Mandi Maneerut—share how they found meaning, healing, and connection through their work. Their paths are shaped by life changes, loss, new beginnings, and a steady pull toward creating something that feels real.

Michelle quilts memories into fabric, drawing from her upbringing in New Zealand and the emotional weight of caring for her mother. Mia sculpts with sugar in Hong Kong, blending her love for culture, design, and curiosity into delicate, lasting forms. And Mandi turns to collage and painting to process grief, navigate mental health, and help others feel seen. While their materials and methods differ, their stories point to the same truth: making things—especially during uncertain or painful times—can ground us, teach us, and connect us to others in ways we didn’t expect.

This isn’t just about art—it’s about how people carve out space to listen to themselves, to heal, and to build something honest from the scraps of what they’ve lived through.

Michelle Wilkie: Stitching Through Change

For Michelle Wilkie, quilting started as a way to reconnect with herself during a difficult time—and became something much more. After growing up in South Auckland, New Zealand, and moving to the U.S., Michelle found comfort and purpose in textiles. Her mother was a skilled sewist, and Michelle turned to quilting when her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. That emotional experience became the foundation of her creative practice.

“I’ve always been creative,” Michelle says. “My dad painted, and my mum sewed. But I didn’t start sewing with her—I started because I needed to make something real in that moment.”

Michelle eventually left a high-stress corporate job and committed to quilting full-time. Her minimalist, abstract designs are shaped by photography and memory, and she describes her work as a visual diary of lived experiences. But the transition wasn’t easy. Like many artists, she’s faced self-doubt and burnout. What helped was learning to pause—to stop forcing output and instead trust her rhythm.

“There are still days when I struggle,” she shares. “But quilting helps me find balance. It’s my way of connecting—both to others and to myself.”

Each quilt becomes a canvas where emotions and connections intertwine and a story is told.

To learn more about Michelle, click on the links below.

Mia Nel on her Sweet Stories Told Through Sugar

Mia Nel didn’t expect sugar to be the material that would change everything. Originally from South Africa and trained in graphic design, she spent decades working in the design industry across London and Hong Kong. Then the pandemic hit, and she found herself experimenting with a traditional Chinese technique: sugar painting.

“It started as a creative challenge,” Mia says. “I was playing with sugar and brushwork, trying to blend traditions from two cultures I love. It quickly became more than an experiment—it became the center of my work.”

Now based in Hong Kong, Mia creates delicate sugar sculptures that combine durability with fragility. Her work invites viewers to think about preservation, culture, and the beauty in things that don’t last forever. Whether drawing on her childhood memories or her fascination with Chinese art, Mia’s creations live at the intersection of past and present.

“I’ve always wanted to create work that feels connected to something real,” she says. “Sugar is both playful and symbolic—it carries meaning you don’t expect.”

Her work has gained international recognition, but for Mia, it’s not about the acclaim. It’s about staying curious, trying something different, and honoring her heritage through the material itself.

By blending the delicate beauty of sugar with the expressive power of ink, I create a visual language that bridges the gap between East and West.

To learn more about Mia, visit the links below.

Mandi (Mahnissa Maneerut) on Turning Pain Into Collage

For Mandi (Mahnissa Maneerut), art became a lifeline during one of the hardest chapters of her life. Born in Thailand and now living in the U.S., Mandi’s journey started with writing. Her book Depression Diary gave voice to mental health struggles that were often silenced in her culture. But eventually, words weren’t enough.

“I needed something more physical,” she says. “Collage became a way to express things I couldn’t put into language.”

Her art is layered—both emotionally and literally. Using shredded paper, flowing paint, and symbolic elements, Mandi builds her pieces through a process of tearing and reassembling. Inspired by Jungian psychology, she sees her work as a conversation between different parts of herself—her inner child, her shadow, and her future self.

“It’s messy. But it’s also healing,” she explains. “I create from both hurt and hope.”

Now a shadow coach and exhibiting artist, Mandi continues to help others through their own creative healing journeys. Her story is a powerful reminder that what feels broken can become something meaningful.

Create because it is a way of honoring your truth. And create because it reminds you, again and again, that even in the darkest moments, there is light to be found.

To learn more about Mandi, click on the links below.

Spending time with Michelle, Mia, and Mandi through their stories feels like being let in on something honest and human. None set out to chase perfection or fit into a particular mould. They started making their way through grief, through change, through questions they didn’t have answers to yet.

They’ve shared that it’s not just about fabric, sugar, or paper. It’s about paying attention to what matters when life feels uncertain. It’s about staying curious, trying something new, and letting your hands lead when words don’t come easily.

We’ve learned that creativity doesn’t need to look a certain way to matter. There’s strength in beginning again, in being unsure, in using whatever you have close by to make sense of the moment. Whether stitching through heartache, shaping sugar into stories, or tearing and rebuilding through collage, these artists remind us that making from the heart—however messy or quiet it might be—can take us somewhere meaningful.

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