spiral dialogue

February 14, 2025

I am drawn to the spiral. The in and out of it. The widening gyre of it, the repetitive motion of it. It’s a whirlpool and a growth vector at once. It grows out from a core and twirls into itself. I meditate with it. I get dizzy with it. I stitch it. It distracts me. Calms me. Defines a center.

“The spiral is an attempt at controlling the chaos.” - Louis Bourgeois

The spiral shows up in my stream of consciousness drawings. When I am stressed, the act of drawing a spiral pulls me away from the anxiety that can build. I layer spirals, create patterns with spirals and use spirals as textural elements.

It’s thrilling to see the form in nature.

And it’s no surprise that I end up stitching this form into my work.

What forms do you find yourself repeating? Do they induce calm? or add to your tension? In addition to spirals I repeat egg shapes, ladders, antennas, gaping mouths and arrows. Why? I’m not sure. Sometimes they show up without my planning for them. I think that is part of the mystery of letting the thread tell you where to go.

Spring Workshops are just around the corner.

Treat yourself to a fun week with people who share your passion. There is still room in the At Play in the Garden of Stitch workshop with MISA in Santa Fe. The classes are small and intimate so that we can focus on what you want to learn. It is a fearless free-motion stitching journey for all. Let’s play with stitch together.

Sutured

January 29, 2025

I talk in my sleep these days. I think it’s all about watching and reading too much news and processing the insanity of our times. One night Jim said I sounded like a drill sergeant. I guess I am trying to fix things.

Let month I made this piece. I called it Disruptors in honor of the dialogue that is happening around disfunction and malaise. I intentionally made this chaotic and layered it with stitch and pattern.

I wasn’t happy with the results. It felt forced and cartoonish. (not that I don’t love a good cartoon) So I decided to cut it up.

The first cut is always the hardest. This practice has taught me that I can always find a way to a new solution. If I don’t it isn’t world shattering. There are too many world shattering things going on right now to worry about “ruining” a piece that I spent time on.

I decided to cut it into 1/2” and 1/4” strips so that I could stitch them back together to create a new pattern. What a pretty nest.

I looked around for more raw material so that I would have more contrasting colors to combine. I sacrificed a beast to this exploration.

I’m reading “The Women” by Kristin Hannah which is about nurses during the Vietnam war. There is a lot of talk about suturing wounds and mending broken bodies. Sewing these scraps together to create new shapes felt like triage to me. I think the world could use a battalion of nurses right now.

Click here to Tell me how you are inspired.

I use these Black Locust thorns as a meditation. Scraps of the thread that I have used over 10 years are tied together and then used to wrap the thorns. I have to concentrate when I do this because the thorns will leave scratches and pinpricks if I don’t.

I wrapped some more thorns last night

December 31, 2024

While wrapping I kept thinking about what I had accomplished in a year and what is still on the list of things I want to do. This morning I drifted through my 2024 pictures and compiled this short summary. I do this to remind myself about the directions I want to pursue further and the directions that didn’t work out as I had expected. I’m getting to the point that if I don’t make a note to remind myself it just doesn’t get done.

Top row, left to right: *Redbud*, detail; drawings at Hambidge, *Everything Seemed Fine until the Earth Pushed Back* detail
Middle Row: Driveway cracks, Dynamic Symmetry study, drawing with thorns
Bottom: Texture exploration, *Brood* detail, *Nonsense* detail

First up. I spent two weeks at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences in northern Georgia in a residency. While there I spent a lot of time hiking. I experimented with folded papers, studied Dynamic Symmetry and did a lot of drawing. My palette reflected the colors outside my windows. I need to go back to that geometry this year. It was intriguing to see how a simple rectangle could change the way a composition moved.

When I returned I played with the black and white fabric I designed and had printed at Spoonflower in a piece I call Nonsense. Then I finished Brood — two quilts merged into one. See this post to follow my process.

Brood, 65” x 65”, merged quilts, 2024, Paula Kovarik

Teaching Inspirations

I spent a lot of time teaching in 2024 • The Stitching’ Post in Sisters, Oregon • Shakerag Workshops in Sewanee, TN, • Women Who Run With Scissors in Greenbay, WI • Quilting by the Lake in Geneva, NY • Madeline Island School of the Arts in LaPointe, WI • The Front Range Guild in Denver, CO and • Design Outside the Lines in Taos, NM. Not only were these groups talented they were also fearless. We had the best of times. I am inspired each time I have the opportunity to participate as an instructor and wish I had more time to just be a student too.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking workshops or attending residencies when you can. I seek spaces and people who inspire me. I look for opportunities to try something new and be in a space that is not my own nest. I like to be a little uncomfortable to change my perspective.

The beach was two blocks from my studio, The statues were at a shrine devoted to the Sleeping Buddha, my studio was a lovely open space just across from my living quarters.

A trip of a lifetime

In October and November I spent six weeks in the Itoshima Prefecture of Japan. The first four weeks were at a Studio:Kura residency. I lived in community with four other artists, had a studio to myself, a bedroom and a shared kitchen. The spaces were a bit raw but PERFECT for my needs. We were surrounded by rice and vegetable farms, mountains, and the sea was a two block walk from the studio. A 15 minute walk brought me to the local train station that would get me into the city. It was a spectacular experience. I’m still processing some of the things I learned. It was there that I started a drawing on a rice paper scroll. The scroll ended up being 18.5 feet long. It’s a stream-of-consciousness piece that is part journal, part imagination and part pattern. I’m not sure how I will ever be able to display it but at this point I like it for itself. A personal memory of a journey.

This year most of my time in the studio has been experimental. I’m attracted to layering and adding texture and detail. More is in fact more for me (though that Japanese aesthetic of simplicity is also calling me). I am drawing more, stitching less. Thinking about installations, moving to messier work. Edgy, layered, inventive. I still want to work in 3D but am running out of room in my studio.

I spent the whole year not doing work inspired by the news or politics. The subjects were just too painful.

Top row: Texture study, Playing with pink, texture study close up
Middle row: Scrap garlands, Grandson Fitz, texture study close up
Bottom row: Drawings from Japan, wrapped thorns, Japan scroll

The treasure at the end of this rainbow of a year is my darling, luscious grandson Fitz, born on December 21 weighing 7lbs, 7 oz. I love you so much my sweet angel.

Happy new year everyone. I yearn for peace.

Second thoughts

December 16, 2024

I think I am done with this piece. Problem is I am not sure what side is up. While I was working on it I just let the stitch tell me where to go. It is a drop cloth that I stitched together to create a surface to respond to. I turned it East, then West, then North and South. Each time responding to what I had stitched in the former session. The composition was secondary but it did seem to hold together when I took a breath to look at it.

Zooming in

Each session brought new textures. The fabric is billowy and unstable. It was difficult to tame until I let it have its way with me—letting the billow billow. I think it might be an old poplin sheet. I used a wool batting and a cotton muslin backing to keep it light. The whole piece is 35” x 37” so it was easily finished in a couple of weeks. After free-motion stitching I added a tight textural filling with hand stitching to contrast with the open negatives spaces left unstitched.

When to call it done?

I might be done with the stitching part of this piece. Just not sure which end is up. Each configuration could be the right one. Here are the four for your consideration.

**Number One.** This one has a large face in it.

**Number Two.** This one looks like a vehicle of some sort with wacky wheels.

**Number Three.** Here’s a happy guy in the middle with his arm upraised.

**Number Four.** This one turns those two wacky wheels into two wacky heads.

Let's take a vote

Where to go next?

Another piece of fabric, some thread and a little batting.

Remember: It’s Process not Product.

OK, yes, it does take some time

December 6, 2024

I came home from my residency in Japan with a bucket of ideas. And a bad cold. Despite the sniveling, snorting and hacking I was intent on making progress on works that I had started as well as new works brewing in my mind. The cold won. And I floundered, frustrated. It was another lesson in expectations vs. reality.

The first task was to preserve the work I did in Japan. Like this 18.5 foot drawing on a rice paper scroll. I fused the paper to muslin and now I am considering a wooden roller for it. It’s tricky. I am moving slowly to resolve the challenge.

I left for the residency with a piece on the wall that was unfinished. It’s a challenge in pattern and color. (see previous post) And after six weeks thinking in black and white I had to put it in the “works-in-NO-progress” pile. It just served to frustrate me rather than inspire.

I’m not really good at giving up. But the minute I did that with that piece I felt a rush of adrenaline that gave me permission to think about new things. And open up that bucket to start fresh.

When I am in a quandary about how to move forward I wrap thorns from a black locust tree with discarded thread. Or I fold fabric scraps into neat piles. It serves to slow me down so that I can clear my mind of distractions.

Giving myself permission to fail is something that takes practice. My expectations are high. I am impatient. Judgmental. And distracted. There are not enough hours in my day to accomplish what I want to do. I need to go back to the idea that it is all about the process and not about the product.

Stream of consciousness stitching on found fabric.

After folding a couple of shelves of fabric, reorganizing my tool closet and wrapping some thorns I found this piece of drop cloth that I had saved from a particularly colorful day of playing with ink. It is an amorphous, non-figurative mush of color on a used and reused scrap of sheeting. It pleases me. And challenges me to play. So that is what I am doing. Playing. Responding. Giving my time to that space of no expectations.

Winter is here. A time to notice the shortened days. A time to pay attention to the skeletons of trees.

Join Me!

You might notice that I have a number of scheduled workshops here on this journal page. I’ll be at the Santa Fe Madeline Island School of the Arts in March. The Alegre Retreat in Colorado in April. The Columbia FiberArts Guild in June. Quilting by the Lake in Geneva, NY in July. The Woodland Ridge Retreat in Menomonie, WI in August. Stitch in Durango, CO in September. And the Stitchin’ Pos t in Sisters, OR in September.