Firsts

The next few months will — I hope & pray! — be filled with “firsts.”  My summer plans include two trips to Ireland.  I’ve never been to Ireland before, and along with lots of time in Dublin, I’m hoping to visit the Kilkenny Sheep & Wool Festival.  I would love to meet Nicola Brown, an Irish felter who writes the fabulous “Clasheen” blog; who just published a book, “From Felt to Friendship;” and who will be offering four felting workshops at the Kilkenny Sheep & Wool Festival.  When I return from the first trip to Ireland, I’ll be getting to know my first spinning wheel — a used Ashford Traditional.  When a fellow fiber artist heard that  I was hoping to find a good, used wheel on which to spin “art yarn,” she generously gave me the wheel that has been sitting unused in her attic.   This beautiful gift still seems surreal, since I’ve been deaydreaming about having a wheel for a long time and I’ve been joking with friends about finding a wheel “on my front porch” via magical thinking.  Also, I’ve been considering other venues to sell my work, in addition to The Gallery Shop in Lemont.  In the coming months I’ll explore the idea of an online venue.   I’ll be reconfiguring my felting studio space to allow for more elbow room when I teach workshops.   But first, that volcano in Iceland needs to remain quiet.  I have few illusions about being the master of my fate.   In traveling, in exploring, in all of those “firsts,” there are inevitable challenges.  So many of the fiber artists I’ve met have a “can do” attitude.   I think this is most likely because the joy at the heart of fiber arts is about figuring out new things/finding mastery/leaving mastery behind and figuring out how to do new things.  A good attitude, courage, curiosity: these are gifts to bring along on a journey.