MAKING STUFF
and writing about it
A record of the making and the learning along the way: process, material, and the social side of hand-making.
Aug 31, 2022
work-in-progress ‘Unbridled’ stitches up pain and pleasure
Thirty years ago this month I floated down the aisle in a pearly silk dress. Recently I pulled this relic out of deep storage to give it new life. It is a ballerina-length A-line number, a fitted...
Jun 13, 2022
Unwieldy and unfinished — fitting for this pandemic project
When my nerves are frayed and it feels like the social fabric is unravelling I feel the urge to amend the situation, often by actual mending. These hands do much less flailing when they're taking up...
Nov 27, 2021
Risky business: Self-supporting visual artists share survival skills
For the second year in a row, I've been leading artists' talks as part of the Eastside Culture Crawl . One of the three Talking Art panels this year took on the wooly business of trying to live...
Apr 21, 2021
VIDEO tour: ‘Joyful Making in Perilous Times’
Click HERE for a 10-minute journey through the methods and motivations behind this MFA thesis. (Film made by Ana Valine, Rodeo Queen Pictures , August 2020)
Sep 10, 2020
Joyful Making in Perilous Times
Where is the joy when you’re living in a time of a global coronavirus pandemic and a local toxic-drug epidemic? What is the use of making when your city is seized by global investment-real estate...
Apr 3, 2020
Homemade masks are not all about you
We who turn to rote hand-making activity to quell our anxiety have been knitting, sewing, embroidering, crocheting and needleworking up a storm. My go-to, like countless others stuck at home, is...
Dec 6, 2019
Tripping on this troublesome rug
In the final critique of my final work in this second-to-final semester of graduate studies, I could see that there was going to be trouble.
Nov 5, 2019
Hoping for heat in this log cabin
I have this idea for building healthy community in this pretty/cold city through hand-making. It’s a process of making peace with ourselves and connecting with others, transforming individualized...
Sep 22, 2019
Finding new Space in Old Craft of Smocking
About a decade ago I stumbled across Latvian-American mathematician Daina Taimina’s curious crochet abstractions. What's not to love about needlecraft (and needlecrafters) that advances modeling...
Aug 30, 2019
We’re taking on capitalist forces, one stitch at a time
Back when I was still transitioning from workaday newspaper editor to mainly work-for-free artist I applied for a Nexus card. "Whaddaya you do for a living?" asks the clerk in her American drawl,...
