A few years ago I spent time on Isle de Mujeres in Mexico. All over the island my sisters and I found scenes like this--debris, flux, and in its midst, startling beauty. As Diane Ackerman writes in A Natural History of the Senses, "Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again."
What threw buckets of light into my world in 2018? Ice on branches in my neighborhood. Patterns and assemblages by my students. The white and red dorms at Snow Farm that spell out LIFE. The sweet smile of my work study student Bess. Stiched patterns in linen by Christine Mauersberger. The winding trail in Point Reyes National Seashore that is an ongoing place of pilgrimage. The small living things and random chairs that populated my walks at Kripalu. Moonlight over a black sea at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. The chaos and order of walkways. Colors of all kinds found in industrial places. Early morning light in Iceland with my mother.