Central Library Hosting "Fibers That Bind Us" Needlepoint Art Exhibit

Fred Shuttlesworth tapestry by Leanna Leithauser-Lesley on display at the Central Library. 

A new art exhibition has just opened at the Birmingham Public Library (BPL). Featuring needlepoint works by artist Leanna Leithauser-Lesley, Fibers That Bind Us is a series of spellbinding portraits of individuals with connections to the Civil Rights Movement. 

Among the featured subjects are Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, Lorraine Hansberry, Medgar Evers,  and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, among others.

Fibers That Bind Us will be on display in the glass cases on the first floor of the Central Library through Friday, October 27. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Nina Simone portrait by Leanna Leithauser-Lesley on display at the Central Library.

Inspired by the virtuosity of jazz music and the resolve of the Civil Rights Movement, Leanna Leithauser-Lesley endeavors to elevate the perception of needlepoint as an art form through her complex stitched portraits. Her work weaves together the quiet, methodical practice of needlepoint and the tumultuous stories of jazz music and American civil rights history. Her finished artworks become a freehand homage to her subjects and to the photographers who captured the original images.

Leithauser-Lesley has exhibited her distinctive portraits at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the Gadsden Museum of Art, and the Wiregrass Museum of Art, in addition to many other galleries and art centers throughout the United States. 

With her needlepoint works, she strives to celebrate the many resolute individuals who challenged the status quo and changed our world for the better. See more of Leithauser-Lesley’s work online at www.needlepointfaces.com or on Instagram @theneedlepointwarrior.

By Margaret Splane|Library Assistant III, BPL Development Office