So we’re now 3 months into 2021, still fighting a pandemic, while millions of Americans have finally been vaccinated. This is only slightly comforting. All the while I’m still isolating, building art garments and creating beauty, taking care of my acreage and my animals, and connecting with friends as often as possible. I am living life, just not quite like it was before. I’m patient. I know things will change.

Still creating robes of various sizes and colors, now I’m pajama deep into making adorable children’s sizes. I’m also in search of the perfect fabric for a ‘smoking jacket’, the kind Bond may have worn, or maybe Gomez Addams while hanging out with Morticia, doing absolutely nothing but adoring her while puffing on his stogie.

Creating something unique is cool; creating something iconic is way cool. Even better? creating it in miniature size.

Around here it’s always ‘back to work’ because those smoking jackets for kids sure as hell won’t sew themselves…

I was never really great at anything even though I was willing to try. Actually I was pretty good at drawing as a child… I was obsessed with building layouts and blueprints to a strangely excessive level for a 4-year-old. But that’s another story for another day.
My sister could sew, she made good grades, socialized well, had a car at 15’ish while I didn’t get my first car until I was over 18.
While I was none of the above – but perceived everyone as having a skill, or a talent, or a gift – I got by pretty well pretending to display those qualities.

One day on the way home from school, I was probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade, I spotted a little golden mass of yarn on the sidewalk. It couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 inches long, all curled into itself. I picked it up and started fiddling with it, and I kept fiddling with it, thinking if I could maneuver it just enough to make it into something resembling a sweater, then it would magically become one (I knew how to Dream Big at an early age.) But it never became anything other than the golden piece of yarn it was. Maybe it was that small but significant confidence I was feeling, that something in my hands could be transformed into something else, that later caused me to push hard to paint, to draw, to sew better, to somehow create something out of practically nothing.

Fast forward to my much older self: I’m a maker now. I make things out of other things and, in return, they make me happy. When others see my work, it appears to make them happy, too. Isn’t that what makes life so rich and expansive?

There’s a philosophical sliding scale of two types of beings on this Earth: Those that create and those that destroy. Most of us are somewhere toward the middle but many polarize to either build, or to demolish. My mission is to build while being as respectful of the residuals that the creation process leaves behind, using up as much material as possible in creating rather than destroying.

Being a ‘Maker’, I create stuff nearly every day. My biggest Daily is creating a mess, but that’s mostly the flotsam coming out of hard work and concentration. Or easy work and a lotta distractions. Either way, stuff gets made, or at least projects are started and eventually completed.

I’ve been shooting photos of my work processes and will soon post each project as it progresses, with a final set for the finished work. All this helps me in my mission to build a life, as well as stay focused on projects.
If anything proves to be useless or just uninteresting, I shelve it until I’m ready to commence… or just throw it away, give it away, donate it, or otherwise get it out of My Ongoing Mess of Life.

Here’s to creating all you can while you’re still breathing air, and cheers to whatever wonders blossom for you. Stay tuned, I have a few things up my sleeve (literally) to share.

In saying goodbye to one of the worst, yet most profoundly moving years in nearly a century, there is a lot I have to be thankful for. A metal roof over my head, food in the pantry and fridge, ground beneath my feet, a great job that I love, and a future to look forward to. All the while, there are so many who are in danger of losing their homes, so many who’ve already lost their meals and livelihoods, and they may not be able to replace the jobs they lost for quite some time to come. I find this deeply disturbing because this nightmare was entirely preventable.

January will bring a new administration to American government, one that I have confidence will pull us out of this hole that has been dug by someone who cares very little about America and even less about all those who call it home, but idolizes so much the idea of “bully’ism”, chauvinism, abuse of power, and the money it brings.

I bid you adieu, 2020 and your selfish, evil henchmen – and complicit women… good fucking riddance.

The other day I was walking back up my driveway and found one of these on the ground. It appears that I have a wild persimmon tree at the edge of my driveway. Yes, the same driveway that my cats hang out at, where two or three of them actually lick the ant beds: they will lay in the red, rocky silt just licking the ant beds (of which there are many) forever licking ant beds, daily, until they’re tired of it.
But I digress. I have a wild persimmon tree and if you know any great stuff to make with them please let me know. They’re strangely delicious.