Claiming Creativity with Wonder, Curiosity, and Ease

Introducing a booklet version of my recent exhibit:

Sanctuary Nature as Contemplative Space

Thank you to all who supported my recent exhibit at Goodwin House in Alexandria. The show came down the end of October and I am thankful for all who visited, purchased work, and offered feedback. I am grateful to the Goodwin House staff and residents for their hospitality.
This show feels dear to my heart as it is a testament to how creativity helped me to process and move through the past two years, a record in words and images of years of change, challenge, loss, and discovery. 

A friend suggested I create a booklet and I began thinking about books I have purchased from authors, artists and poets during the pandemic and the ways these offered connection. I grew curious about tools for producing a book of my own and was fortunate to find a printer that offered this format. 

My book is 60 pages and includes all the images from my Goodwin House show as well as artist notes about the series and my working process. I hope it can be a handheld visit through this body of work. I made the book for me as a way to remember and catalogue this work as well as to be able to share with more broadly.
You can find the book on my Etsy site here.

As I reflect on making this, I delight in the fact that the book was a surprise, an experiment, something that wasn't on my original to do list. The process of creating was led by wonder, curiosity, and ease. I began to wonder what tools I might find, became curious about how they worked and allowed myself to experiment. By approaching with openness, I invited a feeling of ease into this exercise. The process was not without effort, moments of frustration, learning and revision but all those things happened led by a greater curiosity about what might unfold. 

I'm grateful for this process and excited to share the book with you. You can access a digital preview here.
 

Creating this book was a welcome chance to reflect on ways book making has been a treasured activity throughout my life. Here, my book appears with a similarly sized poetry book published in the Stratford Landing Elementary publishing lab when I was in 4th grade.

Scrapbooks were part of my childhood and photo books have been a great way to enjoy and share travel memories as a family. I am thinking about further book making opportunities thanks to the joy of this project. 

Comparing my early publication and this one, I also enjoy the wonder of technology available now for small press printing.

I'd love to hear if there are creative practices you remember enjoying as a child that are still part of your life in new ways. Or perhaps are there practices you remember and would like to reclaim?

My Etsy site is updated with a few new photo transfer pieces as well as new laser cut prints of favorite paper cuts. You can visit the site here. Also feel free to contact me for local orders for pick-up.

Thank you for reading and being a part of creative community through this newsletter.
With a grateful heart,
Kathryn