Opening Reception: Clarity at 83 by Penny Sisto
Join us for the opening reception of Clarity at 83, the newest exhibition by internationally acclaimed fiber artist Penny Sisto, on Thursday, September 25 at 6:30 pm at the Mount Saint Francis Center for Spirituality.
In this deeply personal body of work, Sisto reflects on the gift of aging—not as decline, but as revelation. Through color, fabric, and form, she shares the wisdom and tenderness that come with years well-lived. These pieces, stitched from memory and dream, invite us to see aging as a soft unfolding into peace and beauty.
The evening will be an opportunity to meet Penny Sisto, and experience these moving works firsthand in the contemplative setting of St. Anthony Hall.
Artist Statement
When you are young, aging seems like a distant shore—fog-covered and fearsome. You imagine pain, loss, and the weight of years pressing in. You worry about the future. You brace yourself against what might come.
But now, at 83, I see it differently. Aging has become the softest revelation. It is not sorrowful or heavy—it is light. It is tenderness. It is joy.
Clarity at 83 is a reflection of this shift, stitched in fabric and memory. These pieces come from dreams—those I had as a child, and those that visit me now. They come from the deep well of living, where wisdom doesn’t speak in words, but in color, texture, and breath.
There is no longer the need to strive, to push, to grasp. There is only presence. In these years, I have found a clarity that eluded me in youth: the quiet beauty of simply being. Of seeing life, not through the lens of what’s next, but with the grace of what is.
This work is my offering. A way of saying that aging is not the end of the light, but its gentlest hue. It is not something to fear—it is something to embrace. A soft unfolding into peace. A final blooming.
With gratitude,
Penny Sisto
Exhibit Runs: September 25th – November 5th
Exhibit Dates and Hours:
Thursday, September 25 – Opening Reception – 6:30 pm
Sunday September 28, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Friday, October 3, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Sunday, October 5, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Wednesday, October 8, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Thursday, October 9, 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Sunday, October 12, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Wednesday, October 15, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Thursday, October 23, 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Friday, October 24, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Sunday, October 26, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Monday, October 27, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Wednesday, October 29, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Thursday, October 30, 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Wednesday, November 5, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Place: St. Anthony Hall
Mount Saint Francis Center for Spirituality
101 St. Anthony Dr.
Mount Saint Francis, IN 47146
Meet The Artist
Penny Sisto
Penny Sisto is an internationally recognized artist who has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. International presentations of her work include the exhibition of a grouping of Holocaust quilts at the Gatehouse of Auschwitz, and a selection of her slavery series quilts displayed at the Royal Armories Museum in Leeds, England, in 2008. She has won numerous awards and honors for her artwork and has been the subject of two public television programs. An advocate for social justice and peace, she is known for the difficult subjects, such as AIDS, poverty and racism, that she addresses in her works.
Born in the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland, Sisto began learning how to sew at age three. As an adult, she worked for the British Ministry of Overseas Development, utilizing her skills as a midwife to aid in health clinics for the Maasai, LuBukusu and Kikuyu tribes of East Africa. Her time in Africa inspired her to combine the quilting, embroidery and appliqué techniques she learned from her grandmother with the beading and collage methods of her African friends, resulting in the distinctive style seen in her work today.
Penny Sisto has received many commissions for quilts, including four works at the Abbey of Gethsemane, where a 28×9’ quilt entitled Risen Christ hangs at each Easter season and for funeral services. Some of the other collections containing Sisto’s works include: Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Loretto, Thomas Merton International Studies Center, Spalding University, Kennedy Family and the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts. Selected grants that Penny Sisto has received include: Kentucky Foundation for Women, Indiana Arts Commission, Master Fellowship and New Directions and Southern Arts. In 1993, she was awarded a Baha’i Peace Award for Arts Promoting World Peace because of her promotion of peace and justice through her work.
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