Where I stand, I can see that my elevation is not high enough. Rain fell on my house last night, but dusted the trees at the foot of the Jura range. It rains now, thrumming on the tiles and slate that are roofs of our houses. I can run to the snow, but it does not run to me.

The charcoal drawing below I am calling cairn. Cairns make me happy; they show me a way. I remember my daughter's first true cairn, and it seemed to make her just as happy. When I am in the company of small or large piles of rocks which strangers have left to guide strangers, I know I am in the right place.

nighttime

A sett, not to be confused with cobblestone, is the quarried block of stone used in building a street. The setts are often patterned in a seemingly simplistic manner, resulting in an elegant and natural and beautiful result. Here is where we place our feet.

 mid-morning

My home is a tent high on a mountain, and I can see far in so many directions. I jump from rock to rock, the bones of the earth, waving my arms. I am a child. Snow falls. My home is a house on stilts, with a big stove. My home sits in a bed of garden, and I grow basil under my windows. I leave pies on the window sill by the kitchen, and if you are hungry from your traveling, you can eat as you like. My home has no screens or curtains, and music escapes as sea breeze finds a way in. Sometimes, often, sand sneaks in the doorway. My home is filled with smiles from children, and I can feel them through the walls. My home sits above cold, clear water. I can hear the language of rivers and streams and the starts of the sea from my bed. It smells of cedar and wool blankets.

I wake up in the morning, early morning, when the world is still colored blue from the leaving darkness of the night before. The sky is beginning to say goodbye to the moon, and it is chilly. I hold my coffee with two hands, close, and I go outside to gather wishes and thoughts for the day. I litter my home with them. They are treasure underfoot. They gather in corners from the days before, and sometimes they hum in the corners of where the ceiling meets the walls, wondering why they were forgotten.  Sometimes, they disappear. Sometimes, they disappear when I turn to go back into the house.

Trelex, Switzerland, and the Trelex Residency of artist Nina Arnth-Jensen Rodin, is my temporary home for March, 2013.  I sit in the north side of the attic studio space, and I can see whether the mountains welcomed snow the night before or not. I am happy to see snow. Because I am away from home, anticipate a move, have lost a home in the past, and create homes in places I wouldn't otherwise select due to relationships and the general course of life, the question of the identity of home is prevalent in my work. If not outright, it is a constant underlying theme.

In much of the work I have made so far, the sewing machine has become an integral tool. The sewing machine used with paper gives reference to quilting and all metaphors of sewing therein (motherhood, care taking, protecting, homemaking). The sewn drawings resemble blankets, which only emphasize the ideas just mentioned. The sewn line works functionally for the form and shape of the work as well as serves as an element of drawing.

The sewn line also reminds me of the topographic maps one carries when on a great adventure.  

My children immediately showed up on the walls first, and thus began the blanket series. I leave my little room and see them first thing in my work space on the way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The blankets are not so much for them, but of them, and thus for me.