june report

some thing that I have been enjoying lately that I think you may also enjoy

Dear Reader,

Things have been chaotic in my life lately but I am trying my darndest to stay grounded and slow the f down. I enjoyed a beautiful week visiting family in Virginia this past week. Now I am in the throes of ‘getting back on track after being away’.

Today I have compiled some things that have been inspiring me lately. I also want to thank you for the gracious feedback on my vulnerable post from last week. I look forward to utilizing this space to document my path to connecting back to my creativity.

Reading

I finished reading the book All of This Could Be Different and I felt like it was just ok. I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like to because the last several books I have read have been just ok. I am dying for a page turner!! My favorite thing to do in the summer is to read outside, ideally next to a body of water. If you have a book that you LOVE - please let me know in the comments. I’m about to start reading this book my aunt gave me called Lessons in Chemistry. I desperately need a break from nonfiction and intense literary fiction books. I’ll report back if it’s any good.

Watching & Listening

I watched the movies American Fiction and Anatomy of a Fall last week and I loved both of them. I believe they are both streaming currently on Hulu - highly recommend!

This episode of Moonbeaming with Sarah M Chappell. My takeaway from this episode is that creative people get bored doing the same thing forever. If you’re consistently growing and changing, your vision of what you want will change, and that’s a GOOD THING! It resonated a lot with how I’ve been feeling in my current slump/existential crisis of figuring out what’s next for me.

The album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan has been keeping me going lately. From the depths of despair and feeling lost, I come back to myself and to joy by listening to these songs.

Wearing

I’m in my cowboy boots era! My friend Amber thrifted these fantastic boots in Arizona and sent them to me for my birthday. She has a vintage store in New Jersey called Hi Goose Vintage, check out it out here :)

Cooking

some of the delicious recipes I have made from Zoe's substack so far

I love cooking but have never been a big meal prepper because I hate eating the same thing over and over (first world problems) and I don’t really plan ahead. My friend Cassie recently recommended this Substack called Restaurant Dropout by this former restaurant chef named Zoe who creates recipes on TikTok and I am truly obsessed. She creates a menu of 5 delicious recipes each week and then compiles a grocery list and meal prepping guide so that you do one session of preparing for the week and then each dinner you just throw the ingredients you already prepared together quickly. The recipes are SOO good and it cuts down on cooking time every day…I love it! I could not recommend it more.

I see that I am #7 on the referrals leaderboard. LOL. When something is good, I gotta shout it off the mountaintops to my people.

Textiles

Yesterday I taught a free class at the Ann Arbor Library on printing and painting with natural dyes using ferrous sulfate paste. I spent so much time learning this new technique in preparation for this class and it was a lot of fun and also a bit frustrating and annoying! If only things worked perfectly the first time we try them. Alas! I had many many many trials and errors on this process of experimenting with both alum acetate paste and ferrous sulfate (iron) paste.

After years and years of dyeing fabric solid colors, I have been dying (no pun intended) for PATTERN! It was so refreshing to learn this new technique and I look forward to playing around with it more. The class was so much fun (as always). Teaching classes at the library is one of my favorite things to do and I am so grateful for the wonderful librarians who care about curating unique programming.

I have also been playing around with clay paste resist and indigo and will be doing another class at the library later this month usng that technique. I feel slightly imposter syndrome-y about teaching a class on something I’m not an EXPERT in but you actually don’t have to be an expert to share what you’ve learned with someone else. Also I’ve been working with plant dyes for over ten years and I can give myself some credit for having a solid background of knowledge. So there!

weaving my first mini basket!

On Memorial Day, I took a basket weaving class at Bandhu Gardens in Hamtramck with Angela of Flag Mountain Studio that was so much fun. We had a delicious Bangladeshi vegetarian lunch followed by three hours of learning about different types of baskets and how to forage invasive plants to use for basket making. I made this tiny basket during the class and also learned how to peel and dry tree bark for baskets. I am so interested in learning about basket weaving these days and was really excited to have this sliding scale class offered so close to my studio.

That’s all for today, thank you for being here and for taking the time to read this. I love having this space to connect in a longer form context. Talk to you soon!

xoxo

Meg