Earlier this year I was contacted by artist Serena Kovalosky. Among her many talents, she creates beautiful sculptural pieces out of gourds. You really must see them! She's also a traveller, a foodie, a writer...... well, she's a woman with many sides and talents!

This year she started a blog project entitled, "365 Days of Everything I Love About Being an Artist". Each day she writes a short missive about something on her artist mind - topics that I think any creative can relate to. She also includes images of a different artist's work each day, which gives a wonderful introduction to so many artists we may not know of.

A couple of days ago (Day 28 to be exact!) I had the distinct honor of having two of my quilts featured on Serena's "365 Days....." blog. She selected two pieces from among my work. One of her choices, "Thirteen Moons", surprised me, actually. I might not have chosen that one, mainly because it's a little older, I guess. But once I saw it there it seemed a most appropriate selection.

Since the begining of this year I've been having a hard time finding my creative zone and not too happy about it either! As it happens, "Thirteen Moons" was made at a time several years ago when I was in the exact same state. I hadn't made much art and was feeling restless. Then I had an idea for this quilt. It involved using some letter fabric as a starting point for adding text. I brainstormed a bunch of words and phrases that related to art-making and also feeling blocked in art-making. Using the letters cut from fabric as my starting point, I 'wrote' out the words and phrases with rubber stamps. Then I opened up my scrap bins and started piecing together small bits and strips of fabric saved from other projects. Combining the pieced sections with my phrases, I built the quilt up to what it is now. The machine quilting was a form of practice and learning too, as I was still kind of new to it at the time.

Creating "Thirteen Moons" ended up being a really fun process and broke the spell of creative block for me. Right after that I started making my "Split Circle" quilts, which is a series I've been coming back to time and again ever since.

This quilt hangs on my studio wall as inspiration and as a reminder during fallow times to keep on doing the work. Seeing it anew on Serena's blog was a chance to revisit the piece in my own mind and know that "this too shall pass".

So, Serena, thank you for sharing your ideas, and for scouting out so many creatives to share with us, and especially for including me among the wonderful artists on your blog, and for giving me a creative nudge!

Until next time -

MCH