About

Faerwear is inspired by many things – predominantly nature, travel, earth-based spirituality, ancestry and indigenous handicrafts – and yes, of course, faeries, whom i do believe have a strong say in what my hands do. Traveling (of the nomadic sort) has also provided me with strong fuel for creativity. The creative process itself is what is most important to me – what has been referred to as “the flow of optimal experience” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) – the end result is often as much a beautiful surprise to me as you.

Many of my pieces and so many of my pattern ideas come from gifts of nature and its voices – shells, rocks, twigs, feathers, seeds, metal, whatever – things you won’t ever find twice. I’ve spent several years traveling, a slow crawl and meander through the western hemisphere, often stopping for a year or two at a time to soak up the vibe of a place. After far too long in New York City I headed to Oregon for a year, south to California and then on to Mexico and Guatemala where i learned a new language, got dysentary a few times, bought and sold a youth hostel, nurtured a medicinal garden, joined other traveling artisans in the markets and streets, crocheted with Zapotec and Mazatec women in the Oaxacan highlands, ate peyote in the Mexican desert and learned to weave on a backstrap loom with the Tzutujil Mayans of Guatemala, among other things… I currently reside in the high desert of southwestern New Mexico, where I’ve been for nearly two years learning how to grow food, herbs and flowers, but I’ll be moving along shortly – first I’m headed back to North Carolina to weave an heirloom with my mother and then it’s on to somewhere warm and tropical so I can bring some new beauty into the world.

Now, I’ve become a total fiberhead – the meditative qualities of knitting and crochet, as well as the beauty of holding soft things in my hands, of participating in a ages-old craft that ties me together with people throughout history and all walks of life, and knowing that the finished object, whether it’s for me or someone else, has love, care and intention in each stitch (and a knitted item has hundreds, if not thousands of stitches – that’s quite a bit!) just amazes me – not least because I’m currently knitting for a little bean in my belly, due January 2011.

Knitting has inspired a lot of other things in my life, too – I’m also taking graphic design courses via the internet, and working on my own line of knitting patterns, which can all be found on Ravelry.com.