Woven Art, Woven Life
I've been thinking about weaving lately.
Not as a metaphor — though it turns into one, I promise — but as an actual, tactile, hands-on practice. I've been doing bead weaving for a while now, and fiber work has been part of my creative life for years. But recently I discovered paper weaving, and something about it just stopped me in my tracks.
Paper Weaving
Fiber Weaving
Bead Weaving
There's something almost meditative about the over-under, over-under of it. You lay down your strips, you start working them through, and slowly — almost magically — a new surface appears. Something that didn't exist before. Something that holds together because of the tension between threads, not in spite of it.
And I thought: that's us.
I have written before about working on multiple projects at once — about giving yourself permission to move between them, to let one rest while another calls to you. I know some of you felt a real sense of relief in that.
But here's what I'm sitting with now: it's not just that the projects coexist. It's that they weave into each other.
The bead work taught me patience and precision. The fiber work taught me to trust texture, to feel my way forward. And now paper weaving is teaching me something about structure — about how rigid things can become flexible when you work them together just right. Each practice informs the others. The skills don't stay in their lanes. They cross over. They hold each other up.
That's what a creative life actually looks like up close: not a single thread running straight and clean from start to finish, but dozens of threads moving in and out, creating something whole.
And honestly? I think this is true of us as people, too. The part of you that shows up for your art is the same part that shows up for your work, your relationships, your quiet morning moments. The mindful attention you bring to one thing spills into everything else. You are not compartmentalized. You are woven.
So if your creative life feels like a beautiful tangle right now — if you've got the bead loom out on one corner of the table and a half-finished collage on the other, and you just started something new last Tuesday that you can't quite explain yet — I want you to know: that's not chaos. That's the pattern forming.
Trust the over-under.
In other news…..
I continue to diligently add products to my print on demand Zazzle store. It’s been fun designing home decor, invitations and all types of products and accessories that people can personalize! I love using my own designs for this…. combining typography with my style of illustration. My latest product line are Teacher Appreciation Gifts. Please visit my zazzle store to check it out: