Maker Stories are written by me, Elizabeth Anne, to share some of the behind the scenes musings and motivations in my pieces. While these opinions and experiences are my own, I hope they resonate with you and encourage you to seek the wild life.
Love and Grief
Full Harvest Moon, 2026
I spun and wove my love. I gave my hands the task of holding my heart and putting it into every warp and weft. This creation holds every warm summer’s day, every deep sigh of rest, cozy couch cuddle, squeaky toy, head pat, forehead kiss, and words “you’re a good girl, Jo, I love you”.
My girl will be 11 years young this January, and while I am still in denial that this perfect land angel hippo treat goblin is mortal, I know that one day we will have to say goodbye. To mark her settling into her elder years, and as she has a fondness for trying to ‘nest’ in all of my hand loomed wool shawls, I decided that she needed her own. This piece, my largest and most time consuming piece to date, is both her shawl and one day, her shroud.
When her old dog bones ache, I lay it across her. When I make my bed, I lay it on top, to make it easier for her to nest, if she wants to. When she is settling in for the night at 7pm, because it is already dark outside, I place it on her—to which she responds with a sigh and mouth noises—the wool whispers back to her…you’re safe and loved, you can sleep.
Two months, countless of hours of spinning— impossibly soft and light, undyed —fiber from Windy Indigo Farm and Fiber on my spinning wheel, plying and soaking and skeining the wool, cutting over two hundred individual strands of warp each three meters long, warping my loom, and loading and throwing the shuttle hundreds of times to make the weave—this is more than a labor of love, it is a prayer of love, that through this life and the next my Jo will always feel she is loved, and IS love.
With this piece, as with all my other creations, my prayer manifests through the process, and through the process my soul meets the medium and becomes the art. For me, material, process, prayer, intention will always be more than the sum of the art— capable of holding and honoring the greatest of gifts—love and grief, together.
Creating the future
Full Flower Blue Moon, 2026
In ever increasingly fraught times, creating art could be seen as frivolous, an indulgence, not important, not serious… or even burying one’s head in the sand. From my view, creating art, making, having creative expression—regardless if it is your profession, if you have a MFA, if you make for fun, if you call yourself a maker, or Artist, or artist—these acts have never been more needed and necessary, and by everyone.
Art is human expression, it communicates story, shared experience, and can transcend time and space. It is memory and critically, it is vision. Art is deep and central to our human story and can continue to be… if we are brave enough. Reclaiming our humanity can look like cultivating joy, living in kindness, building bridges and relationships, being sanctuary, and protecting the vulnerable and the voiceless—all of which can be supported, expressed and shared through art. We can’t build a new and more humane world with only hammers… it’s time to pick up our spindles, spades, and brushes and create.
Ending the Year of the Snake
Mourning Moon, 2025
The last full moon’s brightness cast cedar shadows in my room and illuminated my path letting the pup out. Silence… except our soft steps, her sniffs, and the neighbor’s rooster. I breathed in the wet fallen leaves and felt love for the long shadows cast by the hip high ferns. In the gap of sky between the alder trees, I bathed my face in her bright glow. Walking back towards a still warm bed and thoughts of a slow, sweet morning, I waved at my shadow. She waved back.
As the veil is thinning and I emerge with shiny, raw, new skin from months of deep work shedding, everything feels MORE, smells MORE, IS MORE. My senses across dimensions are heightened. I am integrating my spirit practice, which is deeply connected to the earth, into my making in a more intentional way than ever before…from spinning new fibers, weaving with new materials, and dreaming clay creations for next spring…I’m drawing my inspiration and motivation from my surroundings. What a blessing to be right here, right now, to be able to seek and find joy, cultivate peace, and know love.
** A blessing for us all **
May these times bring out our courage. May it deepen our love, care, connection and support for all our two-legged, four-legged, winged and finned friends and relatives. May it encourage us into action, calling upon our highest selves to birth forward a new world, a new way of living, relating, consuming and creating.
Warp & Weft
Cold Moon, 2025
I learned to weave on a small tapestry loom, loaned by a friend. After two pieces, my hands knew they wanted more, and my ideas wanted a bigger canvas. I wove on a taller and wider tapestry loom. And then, I grew curious… How could I weave beyond the confines of this space? How could I make longer, or wider pieces? As the days grew shorter, and the wind colder, I flowed into the deeply human desire not just to create, but to clothe and adorn. I needed to weave a scarf.
I bought a reasonably priced loom with reasonable online reviews. She sat in her box, patient, ready, waiting while I called in my teacher. I asked the owls, the wind, the trees to carry my message—to the women, to the healers, to the wild ones, to the islands—I was ready to learn. Two months later I sat in my teacher’s home, unboxing and building this loom together. We were visited by passing deer and rippling water that hinted at whales passing. A month later, and just in time for Winter Solstice, my first piece on this loom (now named Brigid) was cut from the loom, hemstitched, and ready to be worn.
This first piece involved throwing the shuttle about 900+ times (that’s the right to left or left to right motion). It was a slow, loving learning period. I am forever grateful to elder Alice, who I am honored to call teacher and friend.
Images: Brigid the Loom and beginning my scarf; Jo the dog, modeling my scarf. The model was compensated with blueberries.
Owl Medicine
Hunter Moon, 2024
I made friends with an owl. Well, I tried to. I saw Owl Friend (a Barred Owl my neighbor assures me) in our woods, north of our house. While my pup chased her blue squeaking ball in the brush, Owl Friend woke up and looked as us, as we disturbed the midday calm. I apologized to Owl and introduced myself and my noisy pup. We looked at each other, me in awe, the owl giving sleepy blinks (did Owl roll its eyes at me?). My hands clasped with child like joy at my heart center, I sat, back against the cedar and drank in the beauty of this wild being, 20ft up the tree in front of me. I was falling in love. Spellbound.
I saw Owl again weeks later, in a nearby tree. My eyes brimmed with joy and love for this feathered friend. On my daily woods walk, I look for Owl. I carry deep hope each time I enter the woods, that I will see Owl.
Eight months have passed and owl has filled my life. Weekly, even daily sightings of owl in the most unexpected moments and forms, from murals, banners, sculptures, sketches, to artists and mentors Owl Woman and Owl Spun, and gifts in ceremony and celebration with found forest feathers. I hear you Spirit. I am deeply grateful for these messages and signs— a feathery “YES!” of my path and choices… trusting I am in the right place at the right time.
Shaman Phoebe Flowing Heart encouraged me to create an owl friend, for comfort and to integrate the owl medicine I was receiving. With the right tools and materials, a few basics in felting in a lesson, my first Owl Friend creation (pictured here) was brought to life.
