In my mother’s womb
a spiral
songs of deep time
of water and rock
rivers converge
water meets water
returning to her
i remember that
i am
Everyday for the last two months of the Fellowship in 2020, I practiced automatic drawing. Using pencil, oil pastel, charcoal, watercolor, or ink, my hand moved freely without consideration of an end result.
In 2021, I returned to Succurro for a week-long residency. I spent my time getting to know the curves of the creek and weaving in the attic studio. Each time I finished a weaving, I brought it down to the creek and immersed it in the water, watching in awe as patterns danced through the cloth. I spent hours observing and attempting to record the patterns as best I could. That week felt as fluid as the creek itself, each step made clear after the next and I was moved to respond in a way I had not experienced before. I felt that I had accepted an invitation from the land, the water, the place and my whole system said yes–with each movement, with each action.
During the Summer of 2024, I led Weaving Club, a series of workshops in Delhi, NY. The project took shape through mentorship and in collaboration with Owyn Ruck while living and working closely with her at Succurro.
Over the course of the Summer, I invited participants to engage in the ancient craft of handweaving as a practice in embodiment, exploring the overarching inquiry – What is weaving? – from different angles: conceptually, technically, historically, mythically, poetically. Each week we wove on frame looms with a range of materials from locally-sourced raw wool and yarn, to fabric strips, rope, foraged plant material, and other unusual materials. Together we followed a thread of curiosity and explored how craft and using one’s hands helps us to better understand our place in the network of being.
The Weaving Club culminated in an exhibition of woven work from the participants and also invited the larger community to engage in the practice of weaving. Shortly after the exhibition, I presented the final result of the Weaving Club to the attendees of the Textile Society of America’s 2024 Symposium Shifts & Strands, Rethinking the Potentials and Possibilities of Textile.
What is the role of the Artist? What is Creativity? These are two questions I have been living with for the last six years since they were first posed to me in Fellowship. In that time the rigid thoughts, ideas, and expectations I have had around art making have been brought to light, and that awareness has invited me into deeper relations with the web of life. In living and working on the land here at Succurro, I have been learning about Nourishment and what it is to truly nourish myself as part of the web of relations — listening and responding with the cycles and flow of change.