Here, There & Everywhere

Current Tapestry, Last Week, Future Book

Dear Friend and Fellow Maker,

When Summer hits, and my part-time work is suspended until school starts up in August, my creative brain goes a bit haywire, popping off in every direction, all at once. Now some folks who know me well, think this is not just a summertime situation. I might have to agree, just a bit. But when summer comes and the last day of work is in the books, and I get to go on a magical vacation for a week, I feel like a kid who runs out the school doors headed for the woods to make fairy houses, swim in rivers, jump into lakes, climb trees and draw them too, and eat mounds of ice cream and popsicles until the fireflies are out, and the cicadas are lulling me to sleep every night. Oh glorious summer! So many hopes and dreams, all here buzzing around in my head and heart. Is this your experience too? (Please say yes! 🤪)¹

“When the Cat’s Asleep, the Mice have Tea! “ 16” x 16”. Cotton, Linen, Wool.

The above things listed from childhood summer capers actually do coincide with my very grown-up-yet-still-a-kid hopes for the next two months. “Fairy houses” corresponds to a current tapestry for which I have just completed the weaving portion. There are still some embroidered embellishments to do once I have cut the two weavings free from this loom. They are both 16” x 16”. They both feature the same cat. The previous tapestry has one mouse sitting atop his back while this tapestry has three mice in festive mode during a tea party.

One mouse is precariously attempting high-wire walking along the banner draped from the table’s edge. Both tapestries were from drawings in a sketchbook from a year or so ago and there are at least two more drawings in the series. The other two are double the length, so I will need to work out how to extend my pipe loom (or get a loom that allows for a continuous warp…? 😍) Both of these tapestries need the embroidered embellishing before I can call them “finished”. Whiskers for the cats and mice; titles on a book or two in Tap #1, eyes and pink ears for the small mice in Tap #2; etc. Can’t wait to complete the finishing work and then get ready for the next smaller tapestries, a triptych I’ve been wanting to weave for a long time.

Live Oak Allee, Brookgreen Gardens. 8.5” x 11”. Oil Pastel on black paper.

“Climbing trees, drawing them and swimming in rivers” corresponds to where I was on vacation last week.² At my age, I don’t exactly climb trees, but I do marvel at them and draw them. I also don’t swim in rivers, but at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, I gazed into reflection pools and stood in awe of 250 + year old Live Oak Trees dripping with Spanish moss.

“Enchanted Umbrellas”. Watercolor, gouache, collage. 9” x 11” Ohuhu Sketchbook.

Enchantment was so palpable I had tears in my eyes for much of the evening of Summer Lights where gourds glowed with pin-hole images and lighted umbrellas floated in the massive Oak trees. Oh my heart belongs in that beloved place I love visiting every year! It is a place where I feel at once as if I’ve crossed over into a magical foreign land and have also arrived home. 💖³

“Eating ice cream and mounds of popsicles” could be the equivalent of spending time watercoloring the illustrations I have for my next children’s picture book! They are about half way completed and I am so eager to finish them and then begin the process of creating the book in Affinity Publisher. I am over the moon to have completed my chapter book, The Spinning House: Stories to Light the Way, this year and to work on another picture book to accompany Genevieve and the Kite.

Completed illustration from Genevieve and the One Thing. To be published late 2026.

This new book is titled Genevieve and the One Thing. Of course I will need more than one ice cream cone or popsicle to help me in the making of this book, but still - it’s such a treat to have these books to read to my grandkids and to offer to others!

I feel as if I could write mounds of words about each of these summery pursuits so perhaps you will hear from me a bit more often than usual. I do hope I get to “see” a few of you tomorrow June 13 at 1 pm EST, as I give a Tapestry Talk via Zoom through the Damascus Fiber Arts group in Oregon. I am so excited about it! (And a little nervous. But it’s okay!) Please do register if you are able. It’s just $10 and you can watch/listen at any time in the next two months, even if you aren’t able to join us tomorrow. 😍

Views of Debordieu. I drive the trolley (golf cart) around and park when I find a spot to draw. Watercolor & Aquabrush.

I hope you are happily creating with your hands this summer…either spinning mounds of wool or knitting up summery tops, filling your sketchbook or weaving something delicious. Here’s wishing you dancing fireflies all summer long!

With gratitude for your presence here,

Jennifer

1. I have just begun reading Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and I am completely enthralled with the delicious words and the way he writes and I’m enveloped in memories of my own childhood summers and well…I can’t wait to keep reading. I decided to read this book after its reference in the wonderful book Theo of Golden by Allen Levi which I have recently finished reading. So so wonderful and inspiring!

2. I have the utmost privilege of getting to be with a few friends in Debordieu, SC. This lovely community is every bit as enchanting as Brookgreen Gardens and I spent the week drawing so many trees and views of this exquisitely beautiful place. It is indeed just as the name means - Borderland of God.

3. I have taken to calling Brookgreen Gardens The Birthplace of My Soul. I know, sounds dramatic, but truly…truly it is!! 🌳 With exquisite sculptures throughout the gardens and grounds, poetry etched into the garden walls, live oak trees, beautiful flowers, and incredible history, I find myself in awe. All the time.