Bringing in the Light

It was in January when I had a bout of insomnia like I’ve never had before. For several consecutive nights I almost didn’t sleep AT ALL, but laid awake all night long in a brutal state of mid life crises anxiety that circled around the darkest of thoughts. Ones such as maybe my whole life was a failure, and why bother to continue living. This was somewhat brought on by some circumstances in my life, but it also felt like I was absorbing some of the collective anxiety around the state of the world. The level of darkness I felt didn’t feel quite appropriate for the level of stress I was experiencing in my life at the time. It was somehow deeper and more existential than that.

I’m human like the rest of us and prone to occasional bouts of depression. But I am also by nature, a pretty positive person and my default is to get up in the morning and do my best to keep finding the beauty in life, even during hard times. Fundamentally I have an optimistic disposition. But somehow this week of sleepless nights was different and I felt a terrifying loss of purpose. For a few days I literally didn’t know what to do with myself and felt lost and empty in a way I’d never felt before. I tried to go to my studio and find some inspiration in my weaving practice, but couldn’t muster anything.

After a while of this rock bottom dismal exhaustion, I finally received something similar to a spiritual mandate. A clear message came to me from what I can only call the Great Beyond, that I needed to create an artwork to lead my way back to the light. Not knowing what else to do, I obeyed, and showed up the next day in my studio and started putting a warp on my loom, one thread at a time. It was a plain white warp, which is unusual for me as I usually dye my warps in rich colors. I added supplemental metallic warp threads and began weaving, without a plan. I kept going, at each step of the way following a Divine Guidance that led me in new creative directions that are a departure from my previous way of approaching handwoven artwork. But as I got into the work, I regained a sense of connection. Connection to the Light. Connection to Hope. Connection to Purpose.

After being taken off the loom, I was guided to do some intervention in the cloth. Paint and gold leaf were applied. More threads were stitched in. A cascading fringe was attached one thread at a time by hand. The entire process took a ridiculously long time, but one thread at a time I grew clearer in my connection to the Light.

And I realized that I wasn’t doing this only for me. I was doing it as a symbolic act for the collective, for all of us, as we all navigate an uncertain time in human history. We are living in a time where AI is changing everything at a scale that has been compared in significance to the Agricultural and the Industrial Revolutions. Environmental damage continues full speed ahead. Wars continue on with no sign of stopping, and the threat of nuclear war has reared it’s ugly head again. The petty division of politics seem at an all time low.

In the face of all this, it’s understandable that we collectively feel anxiety, hopelessness and darkness. The literal future of the Earth and humanity seems to be in jeopardy. And yet, for this very reason, we NEED to keep our vision towards the Light. We cannot let ourselves be consumed and defeated by the constant stream of bad news. For both ourselves and our children, we need to keep our heads above water and the spark in our eyes.

With this act of creative defiance in the face of consuming darkness, a new direction has emerged in my artwork. “Bringing in the Light” began as a single artwork that strove to make the Light real by weaving it, and has now expanded into an emerging body of work exploring the ways in which the Divine can become manifest in our lives. Sometimes it manifests through the literal creation of cloth, but it can also be in the small miracles we experience every day that make life special.

I invite you to follow along as this body of work continues to emerge. And if any of this resonates with your own journey through darkness toward light, I would genuinely love to hear from you.

One thread at a time.

The newest addition to the collection: “Gathering Light”