We Can Work With This, Too

Maybe you don't know what you will come up with. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the color is the thing, and the playing with it--layering and adding, covering and taking away. After a while the paper takes on its own life, and while you did not find the thing you were trying to create, you found something else and it was beautiful. Think of it as a collaboration between you and Chance. I  am open, you tell God, you tell the universe, you tell the people you love. We can work with this, too, without losing ourselves, without forgetting our dreams. It's just that the canvas is so much bigger than we had anticipated.

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Coptic Stitch Journals

These days I have to think in terms of projects. While I work on one the others wait, patiently or otherwise. I finish things, but usually not within the time frame I had imagined. Some days this is frustrating, but other days I can totally bask in the warmth of knowing that I do finish things, contrary to how I saw myself when I was much younger, and not only that but I like the things I eventually put out into the world. Most days that is really a whole lot of warmth, and it is helping me to get more comfortable with the backlog of Things Waiting.

One recent project is this group of hand bound journals/sketchbooks/blank books. Pink is not a color I turn to very often, but back in February I was recovering from influenza and bronchitis, thinking about how nice spring would feel, and probably feeling the influence of Valentine's Day everywhere I turned. I wanted pink--glowing, tender, robust, healthy, promising pink in deep-breathing, loving shades. I also wanted to play with watercolors and so, slowly, these journals were born.

Somewhere towards the end of finishing one of these journals, I had the impression that I was creating a small world. And hopefully someone else will take this simple small world into their hands and feel the call to create their own world or worlds within it. That is my hope for these little blank books. I think our souls ache to create and birth and converse as much now as ever in our history.

This, too, is an encouragement when I start to get overwhelmed by all the Things Waiting. They will be finished because they are needed.

These three are available in my Etsy shop, Bark Bread Designs:

These two are available locally at an antique store, along with some other items I have made. (If you are interested in these, please message me.)

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Now in my Etsy Shop!

"Maybe I can let the pile of laundry be what it is and see it transformed at the same time."

My book, Shift: a visual poem, is now available in my Etsy shop. Equal parts prose poem and photographic series, this slim hybrid challenges the reader through vivid pictures and spare text to see the world around us both "as it is" and as something more--magical, transformed, full of possibility. You can find it here.

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Introducing Bark Bread Designs

So I spent much of 2017 making things. Writing and submitting, still, but also making the most lovely little tangibles I could manage. My visual poem Shift was the first project, but I have also been working on a number of paper creations: earrings, blank books, a few necklaces. And I finally have an Etsy shop, Bark Bread Designs, open so I can share them with the world. Please visit! I have more to list, more to learn, and a bunch of new ideas to try, so stay tuned. I'll keep you posted.

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