Winter | 2025
Playlist : Roo Panes | Will Evans | Skyrim Ambience
Favorites : Scout Coffee cardamom buns still | Winter sunsets | Ecstatic Dance | Harry Potter Marathon | Snowy walks
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Well folks, here we are. If you’ve been around since I started writing my monthly blogs, welcome back! If you’re new here, hello!
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I took a few months this winter to sit and ask myself what I wanted the goal of these to be. And truthfully, I told myself I have no idea. ¯\(ツ)/¯
I’m a big fan of consistency, so the monthly idea sounded great. But instead of writing each month, I’m just going to write whenever I feel like it, which sounds like how it should be! For right now, I want to write to share, express, and connect with people.
This winter, I decided to redraw my first prairi pin, and my mom’s initial reaction was, “Don’t mess up a good thing!” To her defense, it was one of my most popular pins that people had nothing but good things to say about. And it was my first, so it held some nostalgia for me. But the more and more I looked at it, the more and more I thought, “This doesn’t look like the flower, though.” And that bothered me. A goal of mine throughout all of this was to create pins that people could recognize at their most simplest form. And even if you don’t know what a fireweed is (understandable if you live in New England), you could at least understand the vision.
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The moment I first came across fireweed I was on a road trip from Skagway to Haines, Alaska. Normally a 40-minute ferry ride is the quickest way to get to this laid-back fishing town. But after hearing from locals about how beautiful the six-hour drive on the Haines Hwy was (up through the Yukon and back down), how could I pass that up? About half way through the drive I remember looking out the window and immediately thinking, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this shade of green before.”
The short window of warmth during the summer months displayed the most vibrant of colors—towering stalks of fireweed against the rolling meadows. The contrast was breath-taking. The stalks spread out like a blanket over a land that had once been subject to forest fires. They are some of the first signs of life after such destruction. The Takshanuk Mountains gave an incredible backdrop. Folks weren’t kidding when they said this was one of the most amazing drives they had ever been on.
For me, fireweed embodies the power of resilience. Even in a landscape that undergoes continuous change, they appear every year, harmonious with their environment.
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After many MANY drafts of scribbled thoughts to paper (my ipad), the fireweed drawing I knew I always wanted to see came through. I tell myself every time I feel stuck that it will eventually show itself, and to not give a timeframe of when that vision will appear. It always just happens.
Pins are small tokens of art that may represent a keepsake of special sentimental value—or find it’s way into a junk drawer (for real). Whatever the case, I love making them. Six years later and I’m always trying to expand what I can do. Including…
Stained glass.
It’s a learning curve, but what a wonderful winter journey it has been so far! It feels good to make things with my hands rather than drawing on the iPad. So far all I have is a bird…and a few random snails. >.<
I can’t wait to share more of my pieces and ideas with you all.
