Long and Winding Road

This is  a piece I've shown before called The World as I See it. As I was working on this project I realized what a long and winding road my life and my work has become. It was started years ago and finished this last year.  This is a blog post from years ago that describes my journey of the past year which culminated in the worst time period in my life since the death of my father who was in a coma for 8 months before dying.  I am now back on the long and winding road of life and peace.
I think everybody's life is a long and winding road to find peace and to find ourselves. With every stitch and every twist and turn my needle takes, a bit of my life unfolds before my eyes. It has been a strange and winding trip from a little town in New Jersey and making afghans to assuage my grief to a place where I can finally accept myself and all the little twists and turns that have made me an artist expressing my soul. Even a simple pillow  starts out as a design that comes from inside of me and ends up as a finished peace. My friend Emily said recently that every peace of my work lately looks like it comes from my soul and when I think about it that describes it pretty well. Every peace that I make fills me with peace and then I wonder why I take the hard route that doesn't really add to my life so much of the time. The hours wasted doing nothing, either playing on the computer. Nothing gives me peace like working on a peace. Add some freakin great music and I've found the perfect moment.

I think most of our lives are lived getting out of our own way. Making mountains out of molehills or letting inspiration be drowned out by something so much less important. In the past few months I've gotten better at drowning out the unimportant but still sometimes an obstacle that I've usually put in my own way crops up. Instead of letting the long and winding peace of thread bring me joy I do something to put myself in knots.

So there lies the rub and the idea that anything that brings someone peace and happiness is something they should be doing the rest of their lives as much as they can. Long and winding roads of life tied together by threads. Sadness and grief assuaged by something they love. A cross word from someone you love or even worse someone who you don't know and who doesn't really matter forgotten the minute you start doing what you love. A peace of work, a peace of love, a peace of peace.

I don't know if you have been reading my blog a lot or just happened upon it but do what you love, love who you are, find your peace of something and just live your life happy. Nothing is easy but peace is the most illusive and most of the problem is you. I've realized I can either choose to be unhappy or I can do something I love and find the long and winding strand of thread that gives me peace. Bless you, keep stitching.

I'm going to be stitching up a new life for a while, so you may not read a blog post as frequently as you have been lately(that is a blessing all by itself).  I will be sharing new work and news once in a while.  You can spend your life chasing crazy dreams or you can spend your life making work that you love, that brings you peace.  Find peace in yourself and the attitudes and opinions of others really don't matter much at all.  Make 2012 the year of the artist in yourself.  Find your uniqueness, find what makes you laugh, sing, dance and be merry as you could be gone tomorrow.  Leave something inspiring for your children and our children. Blessings again.  Remember the peace.