Looking back and bringing forth anew
My big sister came to visit me. It was the first time she came to our place, so this was a big deal, and our time together was amazing.
Beck is also an artist (among her many other great talents) and I was excited to show her my studio, of course. She asked me at one point how I started doing healing chimes, how that became a direction I took with my art.
Telling her the origins led me to think about the major influences that converged in a three-year-ish period (2017-2020) that led to creating healing chimes:
1) A recognition and appreciation for Lao weavers through my work and travels to Laos over six years running Indigo Lion Handmade. Lao weavers use materials that come from the earth to create their textiles – the cotton grown to be spun into thread and then woven into fabric; the plants, bark, roots, and flowers gathered in the village to make natural dyes for the thread. Their art comes from the earth. It is crafted with their hands. It is woven with the knowledge of many generations.
2) My own nature gathering, from years of collecting rocks, sticks, dried leaves and seedpods from travels, hikes, my neighborhood and own backyard.
3) Being inspired by artist Emery Blagdon, whose work I first saw at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s (SAAM) Folk and Self-Taught Art Gallery. I wondered if he could make his healing machine with found metal junk and believe it healed people everywhere, what if I made healing chimes with hand-spun thread from Laos and natural found objects from my collection and infused it with my healing energy for anyone who needed it?
4) Learning hand stitching with Julie Booth was the last beautiful aspect that make it all come together. What she taught, what she opened up for me to see, and with her guidance, that allowed me to find my way. It was instrumental and pivotal to my work.
When I was showing my sister my studio, I pulled a box of early hand stitching work from my shelf.
It contained work I had done in Julie’s class of early marks, techniques, and possibilities. I was so inspired! There’s something in all this to explore more with healing chimes, I thought.
I had been wanting to do just that for a while, to explore something different with my healing chimes, but didn’t know what direction to take. Looking back to bring forth something new was the visual spark I needed that led towards a slight shift of direction in creating three new healing chimes.
In the days that followed, ideas came to me and I sketched some of them down.
I pulled out a shoebox of Lao fabrics and thread and a tray of wrapped and painted dried leaves and seedpods. Something was brewing. I played with incorporating square and rectangular swatches, and trying different hand-stitching marks – like seed stitch and tacking threads.
This was all only a slight shift from where I previously was, but a more noticeable shift from where I began three years ago, when I didn’t even incorporate Lao fabric or hand stitching.
These slow shifts over the past few years have included different kinds of hand stitching, different ways of tethering and wrapping, different approaches to painting leaves and seedpods, and different styles of design and construction. They were all part of an evolving process.
As my friend Sush mentioned recently when citing the performance, The Upstairs Department at Signature Theater, there are two kinds of change: evolution, which are small slow shifts, and transformation, which are big sudden shifts.
My healing chimes are evolving, and I’ve appreciated the slow small shifts – an accumulation of what has been, and sometimes, like this time, by looking back and bringing forth anew.
✻
LouLou
“Looking back and bringing forth anew” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Patreon supporters in May 2022. Now it's public and available to you, too!
And I’m excited to announce that since December 2022, I’ve switched to Ko-fi!
Ko-fi is also an online creator platform and makes it easy for fans to financially support creatives with either a one-time donation or signing up for a monthly subscription. It is where I share early access and exclusive content of my creative process, original stories, and inspiration. My work explores fiber arts, nature gathering, mark making, photography, and writing.
Want to join me and other supporters on a journey? By joining one of my monthly membership tiers, I get to show my appreciation to you by offering benefits! Depending on the tier, the benefits I offer are behind the scenes, works in progress, personal stories, early access, exclusive content, and mailed packages of my art, experiments, and/or Lao materials.
Want to offer a little support because you like what you see or read? I’m humbly grateful for your one-time donation!
Thank you, each of you, for supporting my ongoing creative work. It means so much and I am grateful. Much of the art and writing on this website is because of you!
A big shout out to my wonderful supporters! Thank you, each of you, for supporting my ongoing creative work – Julie B, Sharmila K, Sushmita M, Kori J, Marga F, Kara B, Kristina L, Laura C, Louise B, Beck C, Skip M, Chris Z, and Richie M. It means so much and I am grateful. I think of you as create these posts, what I write about and share, and I hope that it offers you insight and inspiration along the way.
