slowly she turned

It’s time for my annual ritual of summarizing the previous year and writing about my hopes and plans for the next year. In 2025, I let go of more of my blogging and turned my blog into more of a web site.

In late January I headed to Tucson, Arizona to visit my dear friend the Fabulous ZhaK, and to attend an advanced tapestry workshop taught by a greatly admired tapestry artist, Tricia Goldberg. Unfortunately, the workshop did not work out, as I found after I arrived that I had Covid, probably for the first time. I was pretty sick with it, but after a few days my friend drove me to some beautiful outdoor spots, including a drive through the Santa Catalina Mountains, the San Xavier Del Bac Mission, and the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum. I love mountains and desert, and it was good to visit my friend, although I regret giving her Covid.

During the first part of the year, I tried to disengage from politics to preserve my mental health although we still went to a few protests. We went to classes at Hirsch Wellness, which provides free art and wellness classes to cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers. I enjoyed making this prototype for a tunnel book (above) from Mary Beth Boone, and I may eventually make a book from this concept.

I continued with the stitch meditations and collages with cloth, cardboard, paper, and discarded objects. I ended up naming this one “Rebuilding.” I spent a lot of time moving into and organizing my “new” studio in the back building and making it a place where I could focus and relax comfortably. This effort continued throughout the year. This is where the frame loom with my weather tapestry diary resides. I also took a trip to Lake Waccamaw with the intention of heading to Holden Beach to fossil hunt, but the weather turned stormy.

At the end of April, we went to Oak Island with friends and we all went to Holden Beach and dug for fossils. Everyone had a great time – it was like treasure hunting. After that, I started my remote job which made me enough money through May and early June that I took a tapestry workshop from Betty Hilton-Nash at the Yadkin Valley Fiber Center in Elkin, NC. Elkin is one of my favorite places! And I ended up with two tapestries out of this workshop that I really loved and enjoyed weaving.

Despite some grave misgivings about flying during the massive budget cuts to federal employment, I had the points to buy a plane ticket to Harrisburg, PA for the Art and Soul Retreat in July and decided it was cheaper, faster, and safer to fly rather than drive. I’m so glad I decided to go. I really loved Seth Apter’s two day class and came home with a book that was heartfelt and lovely, and I made two new friends. There’s a slideshow of the book on this post. Sadly, I learned that I am allergic to encaustic, but there are ways to get around that.

Somewhere in here, I got stuck in my head that I had to find a job. My anxiety about money was very high. In August, I found a great one back at my previous employer, but my anxiety disorder was too out of control to deal with it without having panic attacks. So I quit the job, saw my therapist and my doctor and changed medications, and now I am doing much, much better.

Fall came along and since we decided that we could not move to the mountains (yet and probably never), I went to the Blue Ridge Mountains three times! Honestly, it is not that far. The first time, in early September, Sandy and I went to Asheville for the weekend, met up with Betty H-N who gave me an easel for my tapestry loom, saw a wonderful art exhibit in Mars Hill, and played in the Asheville Drum Circle, which we’ve always wanted to do.

Then in late September, I went to Edwina Bringle’s fiber art retreat at Wildacres. This was my third year at her retreat. I finished another tapestry there and took many photos and brought home lots of inspiration for more. Parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway were still closed over a year after Helene. Turns out that if you drive the BRP on the first weekend of October, ya better not need to park at any of the trailheads or parking lots, but it was totally worth driving that way home.

Just a few weeks later, I headed back to Little Switzerland for a new retreat experience – this was a group of fiber artists who get together 2-3 times a year at Big Lynn Lodge. I thought I would not know anyone, but I did know one person who I had met at one of Edwina’s retreats. This wasn’t far off the concept of Edwina’s retreat, actually. It was very informal. We gathered in the comfy old lobby of the lodge with a fireplace and amazing views, and everybody pretty much did their own thing. If you wanted instruction, Susan, one of the organizers who I became friends with, had a theme for each retreat which she would offer instruction if needed. This time it was embroidery on denim. I loved it so much that I plan to go back whenever possible.

When I took Pablocito to the vet for his annual check-up, he certainly seemed healthy to all of us. But within two weeks I ended up spending about $1000 on him, and we really worried that he was going to die because he had stopped eating. It turned out that he was extremely dehydrated and totally constipated. After an enema and a few days of syringe feeding, he is back to his old nutso self. So for that reason and my two day bout of vertigo, I didn’t go to Lake Waccamaw for Thanksgiving.

In mid December I put the tapestry above and the similar one that I wove at Betty’s workshop in the year-end art exhibition at the Continental Club Gallery. I decided to name this one “Lake Waccamaw” because as I was weaving it I kept thinking about the sticks at the bottom of the shallow tea colored waters and the reflections on the water.

Later on, I drove down to the lake for a few days and delivered “Rascal and Sissy Share the Sunbeam” to my sister at long last. We saw the Christmas gator and ate out and gorged on junk food and sweets before coming back to Greensboro for Christmas. I thought that I had a job beginning on Dec. 22, but at the last minute got an email that it had been delayed until Jan. 5. So we had a very lazy Christmas at home.

This evening, on the last day of 2025, I am fervently wishing that things will get better in this world, knowing that our powerful, corrupt, unlawful, and murderous government is responsible for so much of the suffering right now. However, I expect it to be an even crazier ride next year. I hope that we all survive it. In the meantime, I will finish this Highland Brewing Oatmeal Porter, maybe eat some crackers and cheese, look through Tommye Scanlin’s book on fiber art calendars and journals for ideas, and try to sleep through the fireworks.

Tomorrow I will post about my 2025 tapestry weather diary, the small abstract tapestry I am currently weaving, and mull over what I’d like to do in 2026.