“The healing comes in the making.” – Emily McDowell My Interpretation: I do not need a spa day. I need a knife, thread, & paper. Because every time I stitch something together, I remember that I still can. That I still do. That I am not broken – I am rebuilding. Hardcover Heart: Thread by Thread There is this idea out there that self-care means bath bombs & skincare routines.Face masks.…

Check out my newest piece Fishy Fungi!

9/12″ Mixed media collage I’m getting ready to lead a collage workshop for OUR Arts Foundation later this week so I wanted to play around and make some notes about collaging. I have been making collages for over 30 years but I’ve never tried to show someone how to do it, so this will be a learning experience for me too. I want to emphasize that layers are your friends. There are no rules, but…

Junk journal making is one of those creative pastimes that once you discover it, you wonder how you ever lived without it. If you’ve never heard of junk journaling, let me take you on a little journey into this wonderfully eclectic and liberating hobby. So far here on this blog, we have talked about making these journals here and creating a cover here. Now we check out what we putinto one of…

Mental/emotional health doing a bit better, I don't feel as heavy. I just realized instead of doing something brighter interior I painted up the band of enslaved miners. These are part of a set from Etsy that is recreating the Mecca slave Walker from page 221 of the Rogue Trader rule book.

As an editor, I sometimes have to discern whether a piece of writing based on someone's personal pain is ready for publication. IMO, there is a wide gulf between therapeutic writing and true literature. That said, they are definitely related!

I think there are three stages in this progression.

Stage 1. The feeling is raw. You're writing to deal with it, but you're also writing to create authentic source-material for later.

Stage 2. The feeling is exorcised. You no longer need to write therapeutically, but you are not ready to write artistically either. You don't have enough distance yet. You let the material lie fallow.