Artist Statement

I began creating these fabric meditation books in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The process began at a time of intense and difficult transition in my life, a few months after I got divorced, closed a business and moved out of my home and leave the pets I loved with my ex-wife. I moved back to my hometown with my parents in Wisconsin to figure out what I would do next. Because it was the very beginning of Covid, normal life was anything but normal. I cocooned with my immediate family and set up an art table in the bedroom I had as a teenager and began to sit there each day and create art.

I had a pile of fabrics I brought home with me from the shop I owned in Minnesota. One day, I was looking through them to see what I might create with them. I held a secondhand linen curtain and decided to cut the top where the curtain goes, not knowing what I was going to make yet. When I cut it, one of the seems opened and I saw another thin piece of fabric hidden inside. I immediately thought, that’s kind of like a book with pages, what if I stitched a little book? And off I went.

I did slow stitches by hand, using a simple straight stitch to wander around the fabric and try different designs and patterns I made up. That led me to see things in new ways and keep exploring. I started gathering little stones in my yard and tried glueing and stitching them into some of the books. I experimented with different textiles I had and started to dream about what other kinds of textiles, fibers and threads I might use. That led me to research online and I found beautiful, amazing materials to keep creating with!

These books are quiet reflections of my inner world. They have held me through grief, loss, anxiety, trauma and addiction recovery. I don’t have a plan for how each book will emerge, rather I follow my intuition in the moment and allow each book to come into being through the process and journey of creating, moment by moment.

I am deeply inspired by Buddhist teachings and found myself turning to Zen meditation practices and Japanese wabi sabi philosophy teachings when I began making these books. The qualities of wabi sabi slowly started to flow through me and emerge within each book over time…simplicity, imperfection, subtlety, spaciousness, rustic earthiness, depth, interconnection, stillness…

And, at one point, I decided to begin burying some of these books in my yard and then unearthing them 30 days later. The idea came while quietly stitching one day in one of my books at my art table in my bedroom. I suddenly thought, “Bury it.” It felt so surprising and seemingly out of nowhere but I was intrigued by the idea. Then, while visiting my favorite local bookstore a couple of days later, I was in the Eastern Religion section and happened to open The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I turned to the introduction and read, “The Bardo Thötröl is one of the series of instructions on six types of liberation: liberation through hearing, liberation through wearing, liberation through seeing, liberation through remembering, liberation through tasting, and liberation through touching. Padmasambhava buried these texts in the Gampo hills in central Tibet, where later the great teacher Gampopa established his monastery. Many other texts and sacred objects were buried in this way in different places throughout Tibet, and are known as terma, “hidden treasures.”

I felt this immediate sense of awe, joy and synchronicity with what I just read! The idea to bury these sacred fabric books I was creating felt so beautifully connected to this ancient Buddhist practice. It was such a wonderful moment, I wanted to turn to someone and excitedly tell them what just happened!

I went home and chose what book to bury and ended up choosing two that I made with secondhand linen, one that I dyed with indigo. It was important to me that I only buried books that were made with natural materials to honor and respect the earth. I walked outside with the books in my hand, took off my shoes, walked through the soft spring grass and found a place along the edge of the woods to bury the books. I kneeled down and gently moved the dirt with my fingers. It felt so good to touch the earth, like I was planning to plant a seed. I listened to the birds singing and felt the sun on my skin as I silently knelt there at the altar of the earth. Then I gently placed the two books side by side in the shallow hole I dug and carefully put the dirt back over them. I placed a stone marker on top of the spot and quietly wished them well. I knew I’d leave them for 30 days.

As I went about my life over those 30 days, I would wonder what those books were doing down there. Were they getting eaten by curious, hungry bugs? Were the magical mycelium finding their way to the fabrics and interacting with them? Was the process of time and the unending life inside the soil acting as a creative collaborator, working with me to create altered objects of beauty I would soon get to touch and hold? I loved pondering these things as the books were below ground.

On the 30th day, it was pouring rain. I walked outside without an umbrella, rain coat or shoes. I walked through our garden to the puddles in the grass, my body being drenched by the rain. I walked to the spot and knelt down and dug with my bare fingers. I felt the edge of one of the books and kept digging. I carefully pulled the mud covered books up out of the earth and let the pouring rain fall on to them.

I walked them over to a curly willow tree in our yard where it often floods during storms. I walked into the pool of water below the willow, bent down and washed the books in the water. I immediately began to cry. Something in me was releasing. I had no words for what I was experiencing. I felt sorrow leaving my body and a deep sense of gratitude and connection to the earth. It was profound and gentle.

After the books were clean, I brought them inside to my bedroom where my art table is. I laid them on a towel to dry. I opened them up and noticed how they had transformed in subtle ways…I could feel how special this process was to me. The visual transformations were beautiful to see but equally meaningful was the healing experience I went through. These precious books held all of that now.

I went on to bury other books over the years, knowing instinctually which ones I wanted to bury and which ones I didn’t.

I noticed that my intuitive ways of creating these books and burying some of them was deeply metaphorical for my own inner life. I was in a process of excavating memories and emotions, surrendering to the circumstances in my life, and unearthing, honoring, and touching what was so in need of care within me. I love that art can do this, that the process unfolds and pulls me forward and then more meaning arises the farther I go into it. I have learned to trust the creative process and know that profoundly amazing things can happen if I stay engaged, authentic and present within it.