daily practice

I make large hand stitched drawings.  
My work reflects upon the place I live, a sparsely populated island in Lake Huron, Canada.
I use the aesthetics of simplicity, time, labour, and repetition in combination with the sense of touch.
I spend quiet time with the work, and make repeated, interesting marks.

At the same time, I keep hand written journals (about 200 so far) where I document my daily life, my thoughts, and notes on what I have read. 
Perhaps because I am a parent of four children, I’ve been interested in how mother artists and writers manage their creative lives.  

I have a daily practice of journal-writing.

This year I am paying even more attention to my journals.
I'm re-reading them.
I feel as if I'm really knowing my self.

I'm reminding myself about who I am, because its hard to stay true when one is easily inspired.

On New Years Day there was a super moon.
I stood outside and looked up at it around midnight.
It was awesome, large and bright, with a large ring around it.
The air was super crisp and cold.

I'm starting a new daily practice of stitched collage, using up a piece of contrary felt that I purchased in Alaska in 2009 as a base to stitch into.

A new thing here is that our daughter April will be based out of our house in January.
Her energy is sure to influence how I spend my time.
I look forward to being with her a lot, but I also want to hold on to my self.

My own work.

I feel that these collages will give me a place to play with patterns.
I will allow patterns.

We are given these shapes or archetypes or patterns and we just need to record them.

It's destiny.

In most of my work I try to pare extra shapes away, in order to give more empty space for dreams,
but in these collages, I will let them come.

The first shapes.