What is this thing that drives so many of us, this need to create?  My creativity expressed itself from an early age, first in one form and then another.  For many years, I was certain I'd "be a writer."  What that meant exactly, I didn't know.  No one ever counseled me in regard to the practicalities of "being a writer," and eventually I realized that I would also be writing, whatever else I was doing.  I never picked a career.  

I feel as if I've had many apprenticeships.  Knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing, quilting - check off the fabric crafts.  Jewelry making and selling, working with metal and wood, and assemblage have led me to repurposing and finding sources of materials in unlikely of places.  And - perhaps finally - book making.

I made several books years ago, before moving west.  My goal was to make them the "correct" way, and I taught myself bookbinding with the help of books.  It seemed a lovely, circular way to learn, like learning car mechanics from driving.  Maybe not exactly like that.  So I learned the coptic stitch and others, and my needlework skills helped me there.  There are as many different ways to bind a book as there are makers, and each way serves to hold the pages in. 

Ultimately, though, the binding was not my focus.  It didn't do enough for me.  Binding the book didn't feel creative, except in the choices of materials and colors.  After that, though, it was just put the needle into this hole, bring it out at that hole, and then soon I was done.

I soon realized that the concept of the book and the details that define and support that concept are the important things for me.  I love finding just the right little piece of collage or stamp to illustrate my vision.  And I love how the thing I thought I was making becomes itself whether I want it to or not.  I am joyfully powerless over my own creations.  

So now, having put my two Etsy shops on (probably permanent) vacation two years ago, I am embarking on a round of making and blogging about books.  Pamphlets, journals, who knows.  I require that my books be more than a compendium of pretty images.  I require them to have a message, a meaning.  And I require them to actually be usable.  Most of the interior of each work is blank, suitable for writing or making random notes or observations.  I don't know if they will ever be used for that purpose, but they could be.  They have a practical use.  That is important to me.  

Come with me on this journey, begun in the time of Covid and an insane president, and ending whenever it does.  My intention is not to talk about personal issues or politics, but about my feelings and my experiences in my journey of making.  This blog is my journal.