beginnings
brainstorming a poem crafted from words pulled from three different historical sources.
I’ve never had a problem with a blank page, because beginnings are my favourite places to hang out (middles, on the other hand….). Anything and everything is possible at the beginning. The horizon is endless, and the sky is wide open for dreaming and imagining.
There’s so much room to play, and playing is one of the things I love best.
As a writer, I love playing with words: feeling them in my mouth. I love rhythm. I love it when words rub up against each other, and the unexpected meanings that reveal themselves as a result. I love the sounds words make. I love how they taste. I love how words move in time; they’re never static. And I love etymology. Call me a nerd, but looking up historical definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary is an absolute delight. I love massaging words, and being massaged by them.
As a stitcher, I love playing with textures and patterns. I love holding fabric in my hand, stroking it with my thumb. I love the weight of it as things come together. And I love playing with patterns and colours, and the bold potentials that exist.
the first quilt I ever made, ca. 2015. Stitched with African, Indonesian, Javanese, and Maroon fabrics purchased in Suriname, and representing the colourful heritage I inherited from my mother’s side of the family.
And I guess that’s what it all comes down to: beginnings are all about possibility. They throb with it. They are alive with it. And for me, that’s where the magic happens.
Welcome to storied selves, the blog bit of it, anyway. It’s a beginning, or rather a series of beginnings. An invitation. A provocation. A space to play and a space to learn. A place of wonderings and wanderings.
St. John’s fog, December 2022
In the blog, I’ll write about my projects and my processes. I’ll probably talk about things I do in my daily life and how these things weave in and through my projects. There will be photos. Sometimes there may only be a single photo. There may be links to other websites and/or blog posts – blurps of inspiration that can take you on a journey into the unknown, the curious, the historical.
thinking about empire and experimenting with monoprinting = printing goutweed.
There will be archives, because if you know me, there can’t not be. There will be musings. There will be colour and texture and pattern. And there will always be moments of delight.
