“Bonnie Smith Whitehouse takes your trembling, over-scrolling, doom-tired fingers and sets them back on paper, thread, clay, a kitchen table that can become an altar. In Our Hands gives power and sovereignty back to our hands, which are so often pulled in many directions against our will! With her signature sanctification of the ordinary, Bonnie Smith Whitehouse declares that craft supplies are holy, letter-writing is resistance, and creating anything—even a page-margin doodle!—is sacred work. When so many of us languish in "What to do?" and slide into daily dread, this book lifts us up from the inside, calling us back to the truth that making things is an ancient gift from our ancestors—and rehearsal for the future we are stitching, sketching, and sculpting through the body. This radiant handbook is hope made doable.”

— Mari Andrew, New York Times bestselling author and illustrator


“In her newest book, In Our Hands, Bonnie Smith Whitehouse offers a luminous and deeply humane manifesto for reclaiming agency in a fractured world. Blending memoir, cultural history, and practical creative rituals, she reminds us that making—stitching, drawing, weaving, writing—is not a luxury but a form of resistance and repair. This book honors the intelligence of the hands as a pathway back to presence, community, and hope. It is an invitation to step away from noise and despair and remember that meaningful change often begins, quite literally, at the table.”

— Debbie Millman, author and host of Design Matters podcast



“At a time when so many of us feel hopeless and helpless, IN OUR HANDS is encouraging, a powerful reminder that joy, possibility, and the conditions to create change rest within each of us. Encouraged by ancient art traditions and revolutionary artists such as Frida Kahlo and Maxine Hong Kingston, Smith Whitehouse urges us to create our own creative practices and begin our own inner revolutions--and reinforces again and again, that the sharpening of our minds and spirits lies within the movement of our hands.” 

--Meera Lee Patel, Bestselling author of Start Where You Are and How It Feels to Find Yourself


“This book was like a warm hug from my grandmother, who gifted me buttons and baubles and taught me to use glue guns and needles and thread.  In Our Hands invites us to embrace the slowness, the messiness, and the humanness of making things—to see that, in a world of tech-driven, profit-motivated, instant gratification, crafting and creating are radical, transformative acts.” 

— Jessica Calarco, author of  Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net

“Bonnie Smith Whitehouse is the queen of embodied spirituality, consistently teaching us practical ways to effect wonder in our daily lives. In this book, she nudges us one step further, beckoning us to participate in acts not only of soulful rejuvenation but of creative insubordination. Part art journal, part anti-hate manifesto, part spiritual memoir, and part survey of women in craft, In Our Hands reveals that art-making is more than a pastime or hobby, more even than a form of self-expression or ritual. It is an ancient form of non-violent protest, a revolution of the soul. For the many who feel convicted yet powerless, this book gives us inspiration, but more importantly it gives us agency, and in doing so, it gives us hope. All we need to do is unclench our fists, open our palms, and take matters into our own beautiful, capable hands—with Whitehouse as our guide.”

— Varina Buntin Willse, author of Beneath and Between 


“A maker's manifesto that feels both timeless and urgent! In Our Hands beckons us all to be a creative force in this world and warmly offers steps we can take to counter the destructive elements in our current moment and beyond.”

— Nicole Nehrig, author of With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories 


“In uncertain times, Bonnie Smith Whitehouse's writing provides an antidote to the crash-out impulse. Read In Our Hands and feel your heartbeat steady, your mind calm. It's for artists, yes, but also anyone with a soul.” 

— Mary Laura Philpott, author of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives


“In Our Hands is a poetic and powerful manifesto on the healing force of creative love. With a rare blend of passion and expertise, Bonnie Smith Whitehouse invites readers to awaken curiosity, imagine new possibilities, and rediscover the deep truth that when our hands create, our hearts heal. This is a book the world needs now more than ever.”

— Becca Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms, CNN Hero of the Year, and author of Love Heals and Practically Divine

“Bonnie Smith Whitehouse offers us refuge in a world of military aggression, capitalist oppression, and quotidian devastation. In Our Hands presents us with a series of habits, rituals, and invitations that enact the divine spark of our human spirit, a spark that illuminates our work and thought and preserves the fragile web of our humanity.”

— Cheryl Glenn, author of Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope

“Whether we realize it or not, we are all makers. This book is a guide to becoming a citizen maker in this chaotic world. It offers insight, tools, and exercises for anyone who is looking for a way to get into good creative trouble.”

— Diana Weymar, creator and curator of @tinypricksproject and author of Crafting a Better World 


“Weaving myriad spiritual and crafting traditions, Whitehouse offers readers of In Our Hands historic vignettes and memoir as illustrative way-finders for a bolstering studio art practice. As such, this book illuminates an integrated visual and somatic response for these tumultuous times. Upon completing this book I immediately headed into the studio and painted with my hands. Don't worry if that is not your thing; the beauty of Whitehouse's offering is that it provides a feast of constructive examples for your personal expression. Read In Our Hands, as it is an ideal primer for making something meaningful.”

— Julia Hendrickson, artist and theologian

“In Our Hands shows us how embracing creativity and making with our hands—slowly, intuitively, alone and together—can become acts of healing, resistance, and hope.”

— Melanie Falick, author of Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live

‘What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits,’ is a famous clue that Carl Jung laid out for the soul-lost and world-weary. In Our Hands activates a calling and map back to that forgotten Garden. As I read each chapter, I could feel buried parts of myself waking up and couldn’t help but pull out scissors and scavenged papier-mâché supplies for a sculpture project I had been dreaming of but pushing to the "someday" list. This book is for everyone: from young women and mothers to those of us with ibuprofen riddled and aching bones, craving that holy and blissful forgetting of what we have been told to be and do in favor of following what our own interiority might lead us toward with some favorite art supplies, renewed vision, and expansive permission to touch, encounter, and remake the world in our own way. In Our Hands burns with honesty, passion, soulfulness, and a ferocity of earned life wisdom. Can't recommend it highly enough for these days we find ourselves in.” 

— Mary Ellen Lough, poet and founder of Women Who Speak With Flowers 


“In a time when so many of us feel desperate to both tend to the world and nourish our own souls, In Our Hands meets us in this hunger. Enter this soulful, thought provoking journey of a book that engages the imagination and genuine agency we all have to make a meaningful difference in the present moment with our own hands. Allow your mind, body and spirit to be nourished by Bonnie's wisdom and insights, and release your own hands into action!” 

— Caroline Vogel, EMDR therapist and author of As Yourself: The Sacred Work of Embodying Grace 


“I’m grateful for Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s guidance in this particular moment. With In Our Hands, she reminds us that our creativity is vital to our survival. She’s inspired me to learn how to make a paper crane, believing that when I use the power of my hands to create beauty, the ripple effects extend far beyond what I can see.” 

— Chelsea Kim Long, author of Faithfully Dissident Daughters


“It is not lost on me, as a fiber artist and poet, that the etymology of poem in Ancient Greek is poema- to make. Making is at the heart of who I am and how I exist in the world. And as the world around feels increasingly divided and dangerous, I find myself leaning more and more on the act of making as a path toward hope. But how do I articulate that? How can I invite others into that journey? How can I hold myself accountable? Too often we think of things like talent, hope, or creativity as somehow ineffable, escaping language and definition. Maybe they are, to some extent. But there is a balance on the other side, where creativity is met with intention, and discovery is balanced with community and shared diligence. 

I want to live in that world, but I also want to know how to build it and tend it. Enter IN OUR HANDS. It is not just inspiring, it is instructive. Instructive, however, is not the same as didactic. This is not a command, but an invitation. Early on, Smith Whitehouse shares with the reader that she has devised the following credo: “Making things with our hands reminds us of our humanity and instills hope for and curiosity about what is possible.” 

I could not agree more. However, I think that is knowledge we too quickly overlook in our hectic, distracted lives. As Smith Whitehouse notes, “We are living in a time in which we are all starving for depth.” And this book offers itself as a deep well. When Smith Whitehouse asks, “What do you love so deeply that it makes time disappear?”, I find myself thinking about the experience of having read this book. I lost track of time. The day after I finished, my family traveled to from Georgia to New England for a winter vacation, and the open fields of snow outside the rental car window created the perfect canvas upon which to consider the book’s many insights. 

 Smith Whitehouse anchors her meditations on real thinkers and innovators, powerful characters from myth and religion, living and deceased artists worthy of admiration. I am specific in saying “anchors” because that has been my experience with this book. I feel anchored, steadier, but also slightly lighter. 

 IN OUR HANDS argues that “making things with our hands is an antidote to feeling helpless,

disempowered, and defeated.” True, I might count as an easy convert to this message, surrounded even on vacation with my knitting and my notebooks. But laced through the conversations of my life, in these turbulent times, is a deep desire for something more substantial than the screens in our hands, the arguments with strangers, the detached despair of the comment section or group chat. Now I know that when I next talk to a friend about how to love and be and make and protest in this broken, overwhelming world, I will couple my words with action, I will give him or her a copy of this book. To hold in their hands. And begin.” – Maggie Blake Bailey, poet, fiber artist, and author of sewing-themed murder mysteries


“In Our Hands illuminates what we've always known in our bones: making things with our hands is how we make ourselves. Here is a book about creativity as courage, a call to action proclaiming that small, private acts of creating become the seeds from which collective transformation grows.”

— Lisa Marchiano, author of Motherhood and The Vital Spark and co-host of This Jungian Life podcast


“So much of Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s writing in this book made me say, “Yep, that’s exactly it!” Or “I know that feeling!” I felt as if she had been spying on me and my artist friends all these years! A beautiful book, one I found I could open to any page and find a passage I wanted to read at that very moment. As an artist, I generally let my pictures speak for me; it was fascinating and comforting to find so many of my feelings articulated so clearly.”

— Mary Engelbreit, illustrator, author, and owner of Mary Engelbreit Studios


“Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s latest book is nothing short of a soul companion, a resoundingly eloquent reminder that the delight I feel when making art is a powerful act of self-possession. As testament to the energetic field of the creative act, it reminds us that no matter how turbulent our world, to take up simple materials and make—to give forth our visions, the images only we can summon—brings essential light to life and is a practice available to each and every one of us. An affirming, galvanizing guide.”

—Susannah Felts, co-founder of The Porch and author of The Come Apart



“In Our Hands felt like a love note written just for me. A permission slip to do all the things I have always known bring me joy but let a world overrun by never-ending to-do lists insist that there is not enough time for. This book is a powerful rallying cry to carve out the moments that breathe new life into the everyday mundane. Thank you, Bonnie, for masterfully articulating the life-changing power we all hold in our hands.”

—Stephanie Sabbe, designer and author of Interiors of a Storyteller