Throughout my residency in Scotland, I thought about the endurance of making as an act of love, as an act of mothering. I thought about motherhood and my children. I thought about heritage and tradition. The traditions that were set before me and weaved into me by the arthritic hands of my grandmothers, the working hands of my mother, and those traditions we attempt to establish for our newly born. I thought about those women who came before me- who set at the hearth making and mending; days spent in and out of harmony, trying to make life good for those around them. How sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I thought about the tie to the natural world – the sheep crying out and sleeping on their heather thrones, dotting the mountains and green rolling hills. The oceans thundering and lapping as fishing boats trolled their waters and lovers skinny dipped on a whim. I thought about the days marked by the volatile weather; living as part of it, welcoming the cleansing wind sweeping off the briny deep and the sideways spit of rain making families appreciate a warm meal and the comfort of fire. The circles and cycles were so present. The blood lines that run deep between generations and the blood of those lines that nurtured and was spilled on that land. The sacredness of it all. I thought of the souls that lived and worshiped and died before me, as I witnessed my children playing in the fields; their lives laid out in front of them like a grass carpet, leading to the possibilities washing in and out with the sea. All of it. All of it was there. It was there in my body, in my soul, in my mind as I knitted; all of it working together. Anam Cara.
Anam Cara is a fiber, photography, video, and installation project completed during my WASPS Artist Residency on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.