If I don’t make the time to slow down, the spirit may never find me.
These diagrams, drawings and wreaths are products of slowing down. And what happens after that. Processing, metabolizing, sitting with reality. Tangling with it. Unbinding. Weaving and wayfinding.
Playing.
I have a lot of drawings and diagrams. Most only look like these vaguely. Each of these came out of me when I made time to think, to mediate, usually while walking, then sitting with my notebook and letting my instincts lead. On paper, I can luxuriate in my own rhythms.
These drawings come from a hermetic mind, trying to make sense of a world ensnared in linearity, often hostile to wigglier ways. These drawings and diagrams show my work, behind my scenes, trying to make sense, to learn, to grow. I didn’t make any of these to share like this, but the themes of this exhibition felt like a safe place to put them.
I started making the wreaths about a year ago while drowning in a tidal wave of loss. Death has been a part of my life since I was young, so I am no stranger grief. But maybe what I’d learned is how to squint my eyes and wander through the fog. I’ve needed to transform my relationship with death and pain, not as ghosts to fear and run away from, but as companions.
The first wreath I made was created from roots gathered from trees that were sliding down a bluff into Lake Michigan. I have since woven wreaths with vines and whatever branches I find fallen or left for scrap. Weaving them has become an important ritual in my life, a chance for my body and mind to be together in communion.
While I started weaving wreaths within the embrace of grief, their meanings have migrated too. I let myself think ambitiously when I weave wreathes from vines. I let myself wander in cleansing thoughts when I am weaving with branches washed in the waters of the lake. I let myself think about wherever I am and the place where the weaving is taking place. And so on. Each wreath is a capsule of time I grant to myself and most become gifts for friends, people or places along my path.
The name of this piece, “Teasing The Roots,” was taken from an arborist planting a tree. He was narrating the process for a volunteer group, and as he was separating the root ball with a blade, he called his activation and pruning “teasing the roots.” I’m not sure my roots invited me to tease them, but that’s what I’ve done, and a summary of my notes are on this wall.
May the roots be with you.
