Crafting Magic

Measure the canvas. Chart the space. Choose the colors. Cut the fabric. And then, fall into creating the image.

I am three years old, standing on the patio behind the house, looking into the woods. It’s dusk, the magic hour. Mist seems to come into form, trees speak to me. Time does not exist. There is only now, and the magic.

A shout from behind, directed at me. I lose focus and the magic vanishes, for decades.

I am twenty, at college and deeply depressed; adrift and uncertain. Hours and days spent alone in my room. Too often drugs and alcohol fill the empty space between classes. Picking up a needle and embroidery floss, I stitch myself a bridge to peace.

I am twenty-eight, traveling alone in New Zealand for a year. Courageous as a traveler yet afraid of people. I adopt a canine companion; a puppy. (She’ll be with me for sixteen years, but I don’t know this yet.) Even with her beside me, I feel lost. Randomly stumbling upon a weaving studio, I reconnect with myself through warp and weft.

Discovering I prefer to work on a small scale, tiny creations fill the next decade…

Size 000 knitting needles, a single strand of embroidery floss, fabric cut so small it requires tweezers to be applied. Dozens of hours captured in a four-inch square of fabric collage or a silk scarf woven at 100 threads per inch.

I am thirty-eight, a new mother in a difficult marriage. I’ve lost interest in weaving and seek a new creative edge. Laura, a dear friend and working artist, invites me to spend a day learning her unique process of fabric collage. I jump at the opportunity.

Driving up to her home - a modernist house set among trees - I’m three years old again, drawn into the beauty, magic, and promise before me.

The day does not disappoint.

Laura’s studio has a vaulted ceiling. Huge windows fill the room with light, illuminating white walls and colorful fragments of fabric scattered on working surfaces throughout the room. As she shares her process with me, I’m transported. Soaking in her every word, I dive deep into creativity.

How I have missed these waters.

Falling into the details of this work pulls my brain away from ruminations. Everything will be there when I look up: the dishes and bills, my children’s needs... the minutiae of life. In this moment, finding the right green is the only thing that matters. Here there is peace within chaos and a creativity that fuels everything else.

Returning home consumes me. Soon I am a new mother again and shortly after, a single parent. Life is a tsunami threatening to engulf me. I see no time for creativity. I forget that in the past, this very thing has been my bridge to survival.

I am forty-eight, still drowning in the overwhelm of being responsible to everyone except myself. The longing for a creative outlet is a heavy thing, a familiar empty space. I fill it with work.

I am fifty. There is no longer time to ignore the empty space. Laura passed away after a battle with cancer several years ago. Her creative process pulls at my heart.

I measure the canvas. Chart the space. Choose the colors. Cut the fabric. And then, fall into creating the image.

Canvas, fabric, glue, and scissors are now a fixture on the desk in my room. Not a high-ceilinged light-filled studio; still, my very own creative space. I don’t have hours each day for focused creativity, but a few minutes or an hour is a life line.

In those moments, I’m three years old on the back patio. I’m creating the bridge, reconnecting to myself. There is only now, and the magic.