Creativity+Coaching
Secret Hack!
Creativity + Making = Energy + Flow
If you are curious about creativity then I’m your person to keep the exploration going. Are you a creative who is stuck and needs a pal for the journey? Are you creative-curious and yearn to make things but don’t know how or where to start? In any case, I know that accessing this special portal provides a secret opening to the world within and brings success to other parts of your life, including solidifying professional goals.
And if you do it with me, I 100% guarantee no judgement. I have no time, no need and no interest in it.
I promise you that playing with your creative juices brings expansive change, healing, harmony, connection, community and fun to your daily life. You can see my art below and you can always set up a conversation.
I think it all started…
…during an especially happy time of my life. I learned how to embroider in Girl Scouts and I sometimes wonder if that is one of the reasons I was so happy. I’ve also been knitting and crocheting for years. In fact, there is a picture of me in my HS yearbook crocheting in history class. Hmmmm. Way more recently, my hands started wanting to do something smaller, more exacting and more challenging and so I returned to embroidery. In doing so, my brain and my body had to relearn how to move my fingers to make the magic happen.
There is an awesome resurgence of handwork and handwork studios across the nation. Butcher’s Sew Shop, set in, yes, a former butcher store in Philadelphia’s Italian Market, offers sewing, embroidery, sashiko, mending and more. It’s where where I took two classes and relearned so much. When my adult daughter dropped me off for my first embroidery class, she said that I was like an excited kid on her first day of school. Yep.
My UK Obsession
It continued with #52TagsHannemade - a challenge coming out of the UK by Anne Brooks. I came to it late as she started it during the pandemic but each week Anne asked you to produce a small piece for a 3”x4” tag following a specific prompt. I was all in and you can see a few of them below. It was hard, good and satisfying. The only thing I could not even begin to master was tatting. Any advice? This led me to Haptic and Hue - a podcast, also out of the UK, by Jo Andrews. WOW. All kinds of histories and stories about textiles, forgotten designers, mills, fabrics, culture and more, more, more. I also must mention Amber Butchart (UK too) who is a fashion historian I found in the Netflix series A Stitch in Time. Fabulous. Lastly, I was finally brave enough to take an online course (from the UK…) with master textile artists who broadened my knowledge and added to my bank of fun. (Clearly I need to take a textile tour of the UK since that is where my people seem to be.)
Politics, Climate Change, Gun Violence
The state of politics, eroding rights and gun violence in the US are always on my mind and are reflected in some of the pieces below. I started this activist expression with the climate change wall-hanging created in conjunction with the Paris Accords years ago. It was a mindful Tunisian crochet project done every morning and includes a tracking journal. I won’t go into all of it, but one point of interest is that the yellow, representing temps in the ‘60’s, appeared appeared that year in December. Do you remember that balmy Christmas? Another fun fact is that I used a variegated blue yarn for one set of temperatures. Can you guess which one? Hint: There is a change in state occurring in that set. I also followed the sky and weather one summer and then embellished it with rain and a bit of Hurricane Ida on the corresponding days. The Dobbs decision taking away abortion rights, love to the people of Ukraine and a very important Pennsylvania election are expressed in handwork as well.
The most recent, and unfortunately ongoing, project are my Gun Violence Prayer Flags. Each month I make a new one reflecting the stats, maybe a location and other significant piece of the horror of souls lost to gun violence. They are hung in my back yard as I say the Jewish prayer of mourning and release my prayers for this to end.
Fun is Good - Especially When You Release Perfection.
All of this expansive creativity is possible because I am at the time of my life where I have coached myself to release perfection. This liberation has changed everything about my time in my makeshift studio. Fun, perseverance, release of expectation and a full embrace of the experiment is all that happens.
As you can see, I am obsessed! I accompanied my husband on a three-day conference and found someone in the town to teach me how to weave. I just joined the Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum so I could see and experience behind-the-scenes offerings. I am out of control.
FYI — 99.9% of the materials are re-used and sourced via decades of collecting vintage hankies and ‘70’s linens and not knowing why. Ha! Fabric from Buy Nothing groups, old clothing, my talented sewist daughter and the Resource Exchange, an awesome place in Philly, add to the mix. Some textiles belonged to my mother who was the OG textile artist in my life, really, really teaching me the idea of freedom in creating. I dedicate my practice to her memory.
My wish for all my clients is that they find — or return — to a hobby or passion that calls to them. It provides much needed peace, balance and fun.
Contact me if you want to figure out what’s calling you or how to make time for it.
It will prove enormously beneficial to your professional work.
