Immigration is a complicated issue.

Rarely a day goes by when we’re not hearing about it, reading about it, talking about it and shaking our heads at our leaders’ constantly shifting laws, policies and reforms. Like the unpredictability of Napa’s weather, the myriad issues surrounding immigration keep us constantly guessing about the outcomes.

Newish-to-Napa resident Polly A. Webber has been in the thick of immigration law for more than three decades.

Her resumé reads like a “Who’s Who” on the subject. She served 21 years as a trial level administrative judge in San Francisco, rendering oral and written decisions for more than 19,000 cases. She also served as national president of the American Bar Association-affiliated American Immigration Lawyers Association and held faculty positions at Santa Clara University School of Law and Lincoln Law School in San Jose. In private practice for 18 years, she has written articles for distinguished legal publications and earned a plethora of awards and accolades earned throughout her legal career.

During her last 10 years on the bench as well as in retirement, Webber has been creating fiber works, through rug hooking and yarn arts, describing her artistry as “a form of meditation” and a way “to get out of my head.”

“There is a pressing need for immigration reform in the United States,” Webber has written. “The Dreamers captured the hearts of a majority of Americans, and the taking of the children captured their outrage. It is time to bring this issue forward whatever way possible. This is my small contribution.”

Webber calls her folk art inspired, refugee-themed triptych of rugs “Refugee Dilemma.” Each wall hanging pays tribute to the thousands of people all over the world who flee and seek refuge from their places of origin.

The first in the series, “Fleeing from Persecution,” was completed in August, 2017. The image portrays Webber’s interpretation of the iconic, but now extinct, set of traffic signs used in San Diego – ostensibly meant to protect fleeing refugees. The plea “help us” appears in Spanish, Mayan, Haitian, Arabic, Pashto, Somali, Sudanese, Russian and English.

“I used marbled red and brown wool for the silhouettes,” Webber said, “to make them more human and universal. The white outline around the figures is a technique found in Russian art.”

“Caught in the Covfefe,” completed in December, 2018, portrays a border patrol officer taking a young girl from her undocumented mother, who pleads in Spanish, “Don’t take my daughter!” Webber describes the image: “An officer’s face is hooked in pure white, an institutional and domineering color, and he is given an almost robotic stance. The mother is frenzied, understandably, and the child is traumatized. The chicken wire fence around them with its barbed wire atop, and the borders around the rug are all done to project the feeling of being trapped. With the more open border at the top, there is hope.”

The most recently-completed rug in September, 2018, “Safe Haven,” illustrates two Central American women and their children in a place of relative safety. “For some,” Webber explains, “this is still aspirational, while others have succeeded. Their smiles are tired smiles, but full of hope. The pattern for this rug was developed from a rug my aunt, Emma Webber, hooked decades ago from a 1950s UNICEF card. Knowing how much my aunt would have appreciated this group of rugs, I wanted to honor her as well.”

Webber has hooked upwards of 25 rugs and often uses patterns made from photographs or draws images freehand. She’s “hooked” her brother’s home and a portrait of her parents with materials consisting of 100 percent wool cloth cut into strips about 1/4 inch thick.

“There are a number of wine country rug hooking groups in Santa Rosa, “ said Webber, “and we sit around and hook with other people. There are also camps that bring in specialized teachers and cutters, and it’s a true art form to go to these places.”

“I poured my heart and soul into these rugs,” Webber said, “and I still think assimilation and advocacy are important parts of the refugee narrative. There may be one or two more rugs coming!”