Sincere Studio is a nonprofit, community-focused sewing center which opened this month in Northeast Portland. Founder Frances Andonopoulos finds inspiration in awareness-raising projects like the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a quilting arts installation first displayed in 1987 that memorialized those lost to AIDS and helped people understand the impact of the disease.
Andonopoulos says they hope to provide “textile arts education with a focus on sewing as a tool of social change and empowerment.”
“Sewing, it feels very intimate,” says Andonopoulos, “both physically very close to people, and emotionally very close to people.”
In this still taken from a video, a sewing machine sits on a table at a Sincere Studio quilting bee, which took place on Dec. 4, 2022.
Emily Hamilton / OPB
A Chicago-born textile artist, Andonopoulos now lives and works in Portland. They first learned how to make quilts while they were going to school in Minnesota. “The woman that ran the bookshop of the school that I went to invited me to her quilting group. That really got me through those very hard years in rural Minnesota. They would make sloppy Joes and Oreo pie and we would just sit around and work on our quilts and joke around and catch up.”
Along with focusing on social change and empowerment, Andonopoulos hopes Sincere Studio can foster that similar sense of community.
“Sewing, historically, has been a really great way for people to connect,” they say. “The community aspect of it feels very important to me. And I think just judging by the reaction people have been having for Sincere Studio, I think it’s important to them too.”
Sincere Studio will offer classes and community events at their space in the Kerns Neighborhood in Northeast Portland. Prior sewing skills are not required to get involved.