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https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780242929-IHJX0KZYWARLWCGXGT87/install+shots-3.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show This post is my effort to chronicle my recent show, Voices of Resistance, which was featured at Perspective Gallery during February 2019. The show featured work from my Voices of Resistance and #MeToo series and my residency at the Francis Willard Museum. During the show apart from my artist statements the walls were void of titles and descriptions, this information was compiled in a booklet for visitors to read at their leisure. I have been asked by a number of people if they might be able to revisit the content of the booklet, compiled here is much of that content. To begin is a brief personal and project background from my artist talk, and following are descriptions of some of the pieces. For information on the work made during my residency at the Frances Willard House please see the following post and for information on the abortion pieces which were the first images made for this show, please see my post of February 2017. On February 21, 2019 Perspective Gallery hosted a conversation with the artist where I presented this project. After the talk, where many of the audience members shared their interpretations and responses, it felt as if this was the beginning of a conversation, one that revealed the deep pain we carry in our bones with the weight of the past, one where healing might occur as we wrestle and reckon with who we are collectively. It is an emotional journey to make work from a place deep within and have so many people relate to it on a meaningful level. One of the questions asked repeatedly throughout the run of the show was where will this be shown next? And I would love to share this show far and wide, but I’m not quite sure how to make such a thing a reality. So for those who weren’t able to come to the show in person, I hope this gives you a glimpse into the experience. Personal and Project Background Like so many I went to bed on the night of Nov 8, 2016 in disbelief, allowing myself to sleep only because I still had hope that the outcome of our presidential election would be different than it seemed to be. And until the electoral college confirmed our collective fears, I continued to hold on to the possibility of a different outcome. When reality was confirmed, as it has been so many mornings since November 9th, 2016 I continued to hope that it was only a matter of time until something shifted faster than the course of a presidential term. There was a collective sadness, a collective outrage, a collective disbelief and there still is. My coping mechanism in the face of challenge and turmoil is to make or do something tangible, physical, from what we can not touch or hold or immediately control. As a college student my reaction to learning about the injustice of the world was to become actively involved in the causes that moved me most. I remember learning about the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and the movement for Puerto Rican independence, a resistance movement against colonialism that began in the days of Spanish imperialism in Puerto Rico in 1898 and later about the case of Mumia Abu Jamal and writing letters and marching and holding rallies. I quickly found myself on the frontlines of the battle for human rights working to address the intersecting issues of poverty, race, education, healthcare and incarceration in the United States. I spent a summer working with Angela Davis, formerly of the Black Panther Party, on the Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex conference, and during my later college years working with Civil Rights attorneys Staughton and Alice Lynd on conditions of confinement cases in Supermaximum security prisons in Youngstown, OH. Later I worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights on class action lawsuits addressing human rights violations in prisons and jails in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. Having spent my formative years working with people who lived the best example of a passionate life, fully devoting themselves to using the skills and education they were privileged to have to doing their best to change the world for the better, when the shock of the 2016 election settled I felt a necessity to address the blatant disruption and undermining of the nation we hold dear through the medium that I hold dear. There were letters and phone calls to members of congress and marches of resistance in solidarity with my fellow progressives, but it all felt intangible. And so, Voices of Resistance was born to grapple with and make, in some way, tangible the effort to salvage and reconstruct our social fabric of decency and democracy as many of us envision it. I have looked to the past for inspiration in this project because history has such a wealth of knowledge to share, because there there is hope for transformation, because there there is insight to the long game of dogged commitment and slow change. I have looked to history to understand the struggles, gallant efforts and endurance of the unsung women who came before us, to find inspiration in the work they did to lay the cornerstones of who we are today; to build a bridge of conversation between then and now in order to connect more deeply to those who were ignored and devalued in the past, so that we might imagine a more inclusive future for generations to come. Although we are confronted daily with what seems impossible, with the nepotism of an unstable tyrant, with lies and contradictions and inconsistencies, there is hope in the steady convictions and sentencing of those close to the President through the Mueller Investigation, there is hope in the growing pool of democrats running for President in 2020 and hope in the new class of democratic congress women who were recently sworn in. Just as there is a tremendous amount of work to be done now to ensure transformation, we are hopeful as were those engaged in the long-game of socio-political transformation in the past. This show consists of a number of interlinked projects each reflecting fears and inspiration of the past two years. Immediately after the elections I found myself thinking about upcoming supreme court appointments and the conservative justices who were sure to be sworn in and the impending potential for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, then there was the women’s march and reflecting back on women’s organizing through out history, and an incredible never before seen image of Harriet Tubman and mass shootings and the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo campaigns, outgrowths of so many prior movements for social change, but with possibly greater platforms. Each of these moments and movements captured my imagination and compelled the making of images. Through slow steady stitching of costumes and props, painting of backdrops and researching my family tree for a personal history of immigration to visiting prop houses and the Lyric Opera to borrow costumes, this has been a journey of making and gathering. But most importantly it has been a journey of connection and community. In a time when people feel increasingly isolated and disillusioned, I felt the need to connect in person and make something in the spirit of togetherness that might reflect the weight of history and the possibility of change. A Song For A Woman Who More Than Mattered (Above photo & letterpress piece) This is an homage to all the black women throughout history cut down before their time, silenced and subjugated. This image speaks to the courage and solemnity of movements for Black freedom in the United States. Throughout U.S. history from Abolition to the Anti-Lynching Movement to the Civil Rights Era to the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter campaign people have banded together to stand and fight for the rights of Black people because we continue to live in nation and a world where all people are not treated equally. Women have been the backbone of these movements. Letterpress prints made in collaboration with Ben Blount, http://benblount.com/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1553191897679-XDNRK5XQZU4WVLHZZDRE/FWHM+Images_-2.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1553191895687-5HDCENI8QFGGQSVAI2Q3/FWHM+Images_-3.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1553191907075-M2HRP2EZG81JDJV1M487/FWHM+Images_-4.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1553191908594-OOTZHI0THQB1KO4DXYI7/FWHM+Images_.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780574089-Q611OQLIXDCW8DSKNMH9/install+shots+BLM-9.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Above are thumbnail images of my work from the Francis Willard house and the polyglot petition made for the Francis E Willard and Ida B Wells image. The scroll is hand stenciled and sewn and is about 35 feet in length. In the Willard and Wells image, thumbnail second from the right, I imagine a conversation between Willard and Wells, although they are not known to have met in private in real life, only in limited public engagements. Wells is explaining her perspective to Willard, describing her observations of lynching in the American South, the grave impact on the moral and social fabric of our nation. Willard has listened deeply and felt the necessity of Wells anti-lynching movement. She is reflecting on her past comments and doing penance for her prior public words. By writing Black Lives Matter over and over and over again she is both absorbing the impact of her own previous slanderous actions and aligning herself with the movement. She is in a new found position of humility and advocacy for racial parity and justice. The scroll that Willard is composing is inspired by the Polyglot petitions that the WCTU is known for utilizing to gather signatures on a specific issue and then present before congress to demonstrate the number of supporters for a specific political issue they hope to change. In this image, Wells is both in a position of power, standing over Willard, but also one of offering advice and information. It is imagined that they are able to peel back the weight and emotion of the history of their interaction and allow themselves to be vulnerable and honest to work together toward change. By utilizing Black Lives Matter, a photo from the frontlines of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington and the Wells-Willard exchange we see the bridge of history of how deeply racism is institutionalized in the fabric of our nation and how much work we still have to do. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1551374211565-YGDNBGJSVRWOWF3FA60M/Blog+Install+Shots+of+Show-6.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780768108-9J9EC6R7W7J2YICGLG3Q/install+shots-7.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show 12th Generation Immigrant Image A colonial settler child gives voice to her descendants support for immigration in a sampler. This image is inspired by the long history of immigration to the United States. The first person in my family to immigrate to the "new world" arrived as an indentured servant on the Mayflower in 1620. He came seeking a better life, new opportunity. Of course the resulting actions of many early colonialist are incredibly problematic, but here I’m hoping to address the imagined potential a new beginning in a new place offers, obviously in the case of the formation of the United States it came at great expense, on the backs of slaughtered Native Americans and enslaved African peoples. But still, the United States has served as a beacon of hope for many people around the world, a place where perhaps a new life is possible. Although it is questionable whether the “American Dream” is actually attainable for all people, it is an enduring concept. The current president has sought to severely curtail the number of migrants entering the country from Muslim nations to anybody crossing our southern border, these actions have brought our nation to a stand still, but those opposing him holdfast to the idea that this land should be a place of refuge and a beacon of hope and opportunity for those who have been persecuted and seek a new beginning. This image imagines a child descendent from immigrants reflecting back on her family history, embracing the path her family has trod and believing it should remain a path for others seeking similar new beginnings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780674936-NYX5G3TTJM3V65E84EZ9/install+shots-6.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Image: Harriet’s Commitment. This image takes inspiration from the determination of U.S. abolitionist Harriet Tubman and her heroic commitment to leading enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad. For 10 years, as a fugitive slave with a bounty on her head, she returned to the South and lead enslaved people to freedom. Her laser focused commitment, her persistence despite the danger, inspires so many today to work for what they believe in. In February of 2017 an image of a young Tubman surfaced that was not previously publicly known. This newly uncovered image of her moved me deeply as we are used to seeing her in her old age, worn by the years, but this image shows her in the prime of her life during the period she was living in Auburn, NY caring for fugitive slaves in their old age. The photograph is overlaid on prints of famous Tubman quotes that have been adapted due to space constraints. Prints were made by Ben Blount, http://benblount.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780713102-CB23A2E2WLBJG42N1XO5/install+shots+3.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Image: In Preparation for Revolution. This image imagines a woman in preparation for revolution; she is engaged in handiwork, a craft historically seen as the realm of women, but is using this skill as a source of power, to create a hat to symbolize her resistance, similar to the hats worn during the Women’s Marches of 2017 and 2018. Instead of Betsy Ross creating a flag for a new nation, a contemporary Latina woman revisits her ancestral grand-mother, finding inspiration and drawing strength from her roots. Behind her the canton of the flag is extracted and expanded, with infinite stars/states, and painted red to depict the blood spilled in the creation of our nation. She is conjuring a time for change. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1551374274528-PE3BTAMJSPHUXTXJO641/Blog+Install+Shots+of+Show-5.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780871968-MV3XF8G5JVDICN3M68IS/install%2Bshots%2B2.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Image: #Never Again, #Enough is Enough. This image reflects on the distress our nation endures each time a mass shooting occurs due to our inability to implement better gun control laws. We do not have to accept mass shootings as an inevitability that may one day take our children from this earth, but rather we have the capacity to legislate against such an eventuality. I was compelled to make this image, not out of a need for shock value, but from a deep space of dread and fear of what is to come if we fail to implement better background checks, ban high capacity magazines and prohibit assault-style weapons. In the words of Senator Cory Booker, “To not act is to be complicit in the continued violence.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550780995126-6J5ADI8MMX84FUJVRNBO/install+shot+needlepoint.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Cross-stitched placards worn by the women and girls featured in these photographs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781051266-XSU8XNKZ25T7R4H608BI/install+shots+5-4.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Image: Future Leaders. These images are a love letter to all the women through out history who stood up for what they believed in and worked tirelessly despite the odds. They were once school aged girls who defied the naysayers to embrace a path of possibility so that greater opportunity might be afforded to future generations. Here’s to inspiring the future leaders and the potential they boldly embody. The seeds have been planted and they are flourishing. With an eye to the past: it was in 1917 the first woman was elected to Congress. In 1964 the first woman of color was elected to Congress. In 1968 the first black woman was elected to Congress. In 1992 the first black woman was elected to the Senate. In 1872 the first woman ran for U.S. President. In 2016 the first woman nominated by a major political party ran for U.S. President. Today, thus far, four Democratic women are running for President. In the 243 years that the United States has existed as a country we have been slow to include the great diversity of voices that constitute "We the People", power being held and maintained by a narrow set of privileged white men, but the hands of time are ticking around an expanding clock and the dominate paradigm is shifting. The 116th Congress includes 131 women, including the first Native American and Muslim Women. And we are amidst a painful power struggle of divisiveness and factionalism, but there is a bright glimmer of possibility on the horizon. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1551374304850-TVC3WWR4NMTCTWD42HQU/Blog+Install+Shots+of+Show-4.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781102593-8G50R6DCN4YF02GE9JOX/install+shots+BLM-5.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Images from the Keep Abortion Legal series. Making these images became essential for me shortly after the inauguration. They are about preserving a woman's right to choose. The intention was to depict a woman driven to give herself an abortion at home, the results are unknown, is she hemorrhaging, in excruciating pain, resting after the exertion of performing surgery on herself, deceased? In this, she is alone, pushed into the darkness and at that moment of rest she is discovered by her daughter, or maybe visited by the ghost of another daughter. She is in a fetal position, perhaps a rebirth of herself. The hanger images are entitled Not A Surgical Instrument, in reference to the history of women who have performed their own abortions using wire hangers. And the close up on the placenta and gynecological tools is entitled Never Again, never again shall we be forced back in time to a moment when we might be put in a position where we would consider performing our own abortions. The placenta and the majority of the blood used in these images are real. They are mine. For more information please refer to my article: Let’s Talk About Abortion contained in a blog post from February 2017. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781143142-6D1ZIVHY03HYQ04X4LZE/install+shots-9.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Image: Installation shot of complete #MeToo series. #MeToo Statement The Women’s March of January 2017 marked a new wave of resistance bringing millions of people together with a sense of common cause. This mobilization shepherded ignored voices to the fore; provoked by the trauma of a man being elected who flaunts his ability to objectify and molest women. From the greek myth of Cassandra and Apollo to Anita Hill women have not been believed when they speak out against their transgressors. The #MeToo movement of today feels like one of the ways our culture is shifting to acknowledge the experiences of many women. Each woman has a distinct personal and ancestral experience of sexual assault from the brutality of slavery, the rape and massacre of Native women, the violence and aggression that comes with colonization to stories of isolated individual incidents of rape, assault and molestation. By banding together and supporting the diverse voices of women who have been violated and abused, the abuse becomes a visible part of our culture, one we must confront. It is my hope that together we are stronger. That we as 21st century individuals are galvanized by both singular and collective histories of violence against women; that we desire to know deeply the experiences of others, to hold them up to the light in order to speak truth to a power that for centuries has gone unchallenged. Today we stand for change, for our foremothers, the struggles they endured and the work they did to lay the cornerstones of who we are today, to the bright future we imagine for our daughter’s and our daughter’s daughters. #MeToo is a fine art photography series depicting women young and old giving voice to stories of sexual assault and abuse past and present. It includes twenty women from a diversity of backgrounds all clad in victorian style mourning dresses, a dress worn by European women during the period to connote the loss of a loved one. In this instance it is not the loss of a physical being, but the negation of the voice of women throughout history across the globe whom have been subjected to sexual violence that is referenced by the European style dress, the dress of one of the greatest colonizers in history. The seed of inspiration for this series was planted on the night of the Golden Globes when Hollywood women wore black as a collective voice of protest against the culture of sexual harassment. The #MeToo placard is a sort of reverse scarlet letter, in the case of Hester Pryne, she was made to wear the letter A and stand before a crowd, shamed for the act of adultery, here the collective impact of so many women who have a #MeToo experience is meant to bring awareness, it is a shameful history of unrepentant perpetration that we should no longer be willing to quietly endure. By depicting women of today in a dress code of the past it is my intention to demonstrate the sense of time that women have been subject to sexual abuse in hopes that we can create a cultural shift so that the experience is not perpetuated in future generations. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1551378696968-OYZGG5CWEOJ389NDOS44/MeToo+Install.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Installation image from ArtPrize in September of 2018. Hopefully this gives a Perspective of what the installation looks like in a larger space. Each image is 20”x30”. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1551378659286-4PQSRCFJI1XXT75C2FJ7/MeToo+Install-2.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781640414-MO9KTH88Q38N0ZXYCV7V/selected+audience+members-2.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show As an outgrowth of this project I hosted an in gallery photoshoot asking people to show up as their version of a Resistor, however they might interpret this concept. Over a four hour period we made images of eight separate groups and individuals. From the embodiment of Gabriel Silang, the Filipina revolutionary leader who lead the fight for independence from Spain in the 1760’s to a family of four who are active protestors and brought their beautiful signs, this was an incredible way to expand the project from the past to the present. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781671698-MJY8N9RJB1XDLRQJFMCX/selected+audience+members.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781702236-Q3TPVDBRAI6MW2ZVJCOP/selected+audience+members+2-4.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1550781753158-DWHNG9BW10CQL2ZYMQOO/selected+audience+members+2-2.jpg blog - Voices of Resistance Show Thank you for taking the time to explore this project a bit more deeply! Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have further questions about the work. It is my hope that if this project is able to travel, with each installation I would create more contemporary resistor images from self-selecting audience members who imagine themselves as such. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2018/7/11/a-womans-place-is-in-the-revolution-a-residency-at-the-frances-willard-house monthly 0.5 2018-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1532056860889-2UQTF1D2V8ZKHGEDUWXV/Revolution+for+Web.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. A Woman's Place. From May through June of 2018 I had the opportunity to be the artist in residence at the Frances Willard House Museum. The Frances Willard House, known familiarly as Rest Cottage, was the Evanston, IL home of Frances Willard and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Don’t judge the name as I might have, but think of being a woman in the late 1800 and think of the search for community with other women, think not of Christian and Temperance, but of Women and Union. The WCTU with Willard at its helm was home to some of the most strategic organizing of for and by women in the late 1800 and early 1900. Willard’s belief was that the Union should “Do Everything”, not be limited by Temperance, but address the many social ills caused by alcohol abuse and endemic domestic violence as a starting point. Under Willard the WCTU was a platform to advocate for women’s empowerment and provide the skills they would need to exist in a society in which they were empowered. Some of the social organizing efforts they pursued included education for girls and women, suffrage, increasing the age of consent, legal aid, refuge rights, non-violent demonstration, issues effecting incarcerated women, prostitution, anti-lynching, food and drug laws, housing, welfare and world peace. When the WCTU met for national meetings it was the only organization of its time that did not segregate meetings by race and thus women of the WCTU forged meaningful relationships across boundaries of race and personal origin. Willard also developed relationships with women from around the world and shared her message of empowerment across international borders. As the artist in residence I spent time learning about the history of Willard’s life and organizing efforts and imagined what life might have been like for a headstrong intellect such as herself in a time when women were not afforded public agency and voice. Upon learning of Willards deep commitment to her work of cultivating a public voice and political power for women I became intrigued by her influences and inspiration. My intent in this project was to take the seed of early women’s organizing and imagine a conversation between past and present in which the past speaks to the future, but so too does the future speak to the past; imagining that we learn and shape our actions based in part on who has come before us and who will come after us, we are our foremothers and our future daughters, and our actions and understanding of the past deeply inform our creation of the future. I looked at many of the issues the WCTU worked on then and how today we, active and engaged citizens, are still working on versions of the same issues. In some cases I reimagined actual interactions and in other cases I imagined potential interactions. In my conversations with director Lori Osborne, I was taken with stories of members of the WCTU both local, national and international, including Pendita Ramibi, Frances Harper, Catherine Waugh McCulloch, Frances Willard Wong, Rebecca Krikorian and Anna Gordon. I was also curious to learn more about the public tension between Ida B Wells and Frances Willard. I remain eager to learn more about the many and varied women who stood with the WCTU. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323537995-ASY22FCUAH88ZYIEH5UK/FWHM+blog+vintage+9.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic Image of Frances Willard and her assistant Anna Gordon The Willard house, built by Willard’s father and continually occupied by the WCTU, has been mostly restored and captures a sense of what life might have been like within it’s walls when Willard resided there, all abustle with fervent women researching, writing, planning and distributing information. Unusually, there are a number of photographs of the interior of the house in its heyday capturing life in action, so the translation from organizing hub to house museum and back again was not so difficult to imagine. The rooms are small and the light limited which pushed my creativity and technical skills as a photographer. After making initial survey images of the house I went home and examined the images, meditated on them, and conjured my own version of the activities that might have gone on within this hive and how they relate to present day organizing. I then mapped out what I envisioned for each room of the house, making costumes and props and calling on friends to become actors in vignettes. At each shoot I told a story of the characters in the vignette and the particulars of what they were doing and why. I asked each woman to imagine that they were existing as a woman of the past, present and future, a bridge anchored in history. Although they wore the clothing of the past, they bore the wisdom and insight of today. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1532056377619-V0HISCP6P77NBU0O0SGV/Ramibi+Circle+for+Web.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Ramibi Circle. In 1887 Pandita Ramibi, India’s first prominent feminist, came to the United States to spread the word and garner support for her work with child widows in India. After the birth of her daughter she resolved to spend her life attempting to better the status of women in India. She spoke out in support of female education and against the practice of child marriage and the resulting constraints of child widows. She founded a school/mission for widowed child brides which still exists today and serves a wider gamut of needy people including widows, orphans and the blind. In July of 1887 she met Willard over dinner inspiring Willard to organize Ramibi Circles in which individual members of the WCTU made a pledge to support Ramibi’s work by donating a dollar a year for a decade to support Ramibi’s work and school. The results of these efforts contributed to the empowerment and education of young Indian women toward self-sufficiency and socio-political participation. This image depicts a dinner with Ramibi and Willard flanked by fellow members of the WCTU and a younger generation of girls, perhaps activists in training, girls being educated and empowered with the skills to advocate for themselves and others in the decades to come. On the table are documents old and new, including the books I am Malala and The Pink Sari Revolution, both current Indian female lead efforts aimed at educating and exacting justice for girls and women. This is a teachable moment, possibly their is a discussion of the sexual exploitation of girls and young women throughout history happening, a discussion of what these young girls can do to protect and advocate for other girls and women. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323324561-5B8HC6EDXB7KKW9CG69C/FWHM+blog+vintage+8.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic Image of Rebecca Krikorian and Frances Elizabeth Willard. A Woman’s Place is in the Revolution (See first image in this post) Willard and her mother Mary were incredibly close and lived together in Rest Cottage until the end of Mary’s life. Mary was Frances’ earliest teacher and although Mary took classes at Oberlin College in Ohio, she did not complete a college degree. It is likely that Frances was inspired to pursue a life outside of domesticity after witnessing her mother’s life under the yoke of it. Willard attended North Western College for Ladies and later briefly became the dean of the Women’s College of Northwestern. After resigning from this post she focused her energies on the WCTU which she became President of in 1879 and remained so until her death in 1898. Using the WCTU platform to advocate for social change she averaged 400 lectures a year to audiences around the world. This image imagines that there are so many women of the past and present whose mother’s inspire their journey to pursue a life of greater impact. In Mary’s bedroom a woman embodying the spirit of the potential before her takes the possibility of a mother’s regrets and looks out toward a world of actions, imagines the possibilities of revolution, imagines how she might contribute to the world and what changes she might make to improve the lives of those to come. During the women march of 2017 I captured many images of women inspired to work toward change today, to fight with a dogged commitment for what they believe in. The A Woman’s Place is in the Revolution image in the window frame is one of them, turned diaphanous to transcend time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531322387193-RR7GUS7LI2H55QKZ3KT8/FWHM+blog+8.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Power to the Polls. Power to the Polls depicts Frances Harper, an African-American abolitionist, suffragist, poet and author who was head of her local WCTU chapter in Philidelphia and Catherine Waugh McCullloh a lawyer, suffragist and member of the WCTU who was one of 100 female attorneys in the country in the 1890’s and would go on to become the first female Justice of the Peace in Illinois and first female presidential elector. Both women committed much of their lives to the cause of women’s suffrage and were instrumental in achieving the vote for women. This image imagines a moment of both confidence and power, where Harper and McCulloch are partnered in their pursuit of strategizing over the next steps in the fight to obtain the right for women to vote. The image is also a celebration and encouragement for us today to embrace our right and responsibility to vote, and speaks to the history of the power of voting. The present day Women’s March platform kicked off a Power to the Polls campaign in January 2018 to register voters, engage impacted communities and harness the collective energy to advocate for policies and candidates that reflect our values and the election of more women and progressive candidates to office. Similarly the women of the WCTU worked tirelessly to have their voices represented and to push congress toward more progressive legislation despite not initially having the vote. On the wall to the left of Harper is a map of the US in 1911 marking the states that had suffrage and those that were on the brink of suffrage. In 1913 Illinois gained suffrage for women and in 1920 women’s suffrage was officially adopted by the nation, although discrimination and denial of the right to vote persists in insidious ways even after the success of the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. Layered into the image as well is one of the posters Shepherd Fairey designed for the Women’s March of 2017 that has a tag line, not shown, We The People Protect Each Other. Underlying this image is an image from the August 26, 1970 Women’s Equality March where 50,000 people marched in the streets of New York city to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the nineteenth amendment. The many parts of this image are combined to create a historical narrative of the past reaching toward the future. (It is noteworthy to mention that the woman depicting Catherine Waugh McCulloch is actually her grand-daughter, so a very direct descendent from this particular moment in history and that national and international meeting of the WCTU were not segregated, but that local chapters of the WCTU often met in and through their churches and were segregated. Harper visited the national WCTU headquarters at Rest Cottage and would have met and worked with other black and white women who were in the house at the time.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323180585-JBHARIR92PPDIB3Q4A9B/FWHM+blog+vintage-5.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic image of women at work in the office where the Power to the Polls Image was made. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531322222013-2YQ8ZBWE1TM3KFUN08J3/FWHM+blog+2b.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. A Room of One's Own. There are several archival images of Willard surrounded by libraries worth of books, stacked and shelved about her, papers in piles and photographs tacked around her work space. She was an avid reader, consumer of information, thinker and writer. This image imagines a young Frances in her bedroom in a quest for knowledge about the future. She is preparing for a lifetime committed to the labor of empowering women young and old across the boundaries of race, class and nationality. Reading text after text she has settled in with Together We Rise: The Women’s March Behind the Scenes At The Protest Heard Around The World, in order to gather wisdom about what is important to women of the future so that she might better shape her efforts. Perhaps she had a certain psychic clairvoyance that allowed her to borrow pre-release texts, a sort of free library with the future. Willard was known for reading late into the night and taking notes on her slate to inform her later writing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323408845-0TJHQNA1BEY6T24RP5PV/FWHM+blog+BLM.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic image of Willard at work in her office. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531322284180-8BLHI8O6ECMCOCD6D3JM/FWHM+blog+6.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Willard & Wells. Although Willard worked on many issues to transform the social fabric of her time, her politics around race were complicated. Her parents were abolitionists and provided safe-haven on the underground railroad while the family lived in Oberlin, OH and she ensured that the meetings of the national and international WCTU were integrated and worked closely with women of various races both nationally and internationally. But individual state local chapters of the WCTU were segregated. This is likely because meeting were often held in churches and other segregated gathering places and were thus segregated by the nature of where and why and how people gathered in that day. When Willard was at the height of her work around suffrage, she placed a certain emphasis on encouraging white WCTU chapters in the South to mobilize for the vote as white women of the WCTU from the South during that time were less inclined to organize for suffrage, thereby not placing an equal emphasis and value on the black southern chapters of the WCTU. There is also a chronicled historic tension between the journalist, educator and early civil rights advocate, Ida B Wells and Frances E Willard. Wells traveled the country and parts of Europe speaking out against the violence and prejudice against black people rampant in the US in the 1890s. She documented how lynching was used in the South as a way to control or punish black people rather than being based on criminal acts by black people, and lead the efforts in the Anti-Lynching Movement. Willard did not immediately speak out in support of the Anti-Lynching Movement and Wells called her out for failing to use her political sway as a voice of resistance in this movement, a case of silence perpetuating violence. Wells also pointed to an interview of Willard during her tour of the American South in which she had blamed black behavior for the defeat of temperance legislation. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the grog shop is its center of power.... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities." Wells felt strongly that Willard's attitude inflamed the crimes against African Americans in the US and that as a woman with such great power she had a responsibility to speak out against the unfounded abuse of black americans. Willard did later sign on in support of the Anti-Lynching Movement and in her 1894 Presidential Address to the WCTU stated: It is inconceivable that the W.C.T.U. will ever condone lynching, no matter what the provocation, and no matter whether its barbarous spectacle is to be seen in the North or South, in home or foreign countries. Any people that defends itself by shooting, burning, or otherwise torturing and killing any human being, for no matter what offence, works a greater retribution upon itself by the blunting of moral perception and fine feeling than it can possibly work upon any poor debased wretch or monster that it thus torments into another world. Concerning the stirring up of the lynching question in Great Britain, I have thought that its reaction might have a wholesome tendency, and for this reason urge the following resolution, which was offered by Lady Henry Somerset at the last annual meeting of the British Woman's Temperance Association, and unanimously adopted, and which has been adopted by many of our State unions: Resolved, That we are opposed to lynching as a method of punishment, no matter what the crime, and irrespective of the race by which the crime is committed, believing that every human being is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers. The interactions between Wells and Willard are a noteworthy and teachable moment. It seems that Willard, who harbored judgments about black men under the influence of alcohol, as she harbored judgements about all men under the influence of alcohol, was able to truly listen to and hear Wells' message about the barbarity of white lynch mob behavior. Through this controversy, she became an upstander, an individual who sees injustice and acts, no longer a bystander. The image I created in Willard's office is an effort to encompass this journey of transformation and active participation in a movement that was not one of Willard's initial causes. In this moment I imagine a conversation between Willard and Wells, although they are not known to have met in private in real life, only in limited public engagements. Wells is explaining her perspective to Willard, describing her observations of lynching in the American South, the grave impact on the moral and social fabric of our nation. Willard has listened deeply and felt the necessity of Wells anti-lynching movement. She is reflecting on her past comments and doing penance for her prior public words. By writing Black Lives Matter over and over and over again she is both absorbing the impact of her own previous slanderous actions and aligning herself with the movement. She is in a new found position of humility and advocacy for racial parity and justice. The scroll that Willard is composing is inspired by the Polyglot petitions that the WCTU is known for utilizing to gather signatures on a specific issue and then present before congress to demonstrate the number of supporters for a specific political issue they hope to change. In this image, Wells is both in a position of power, standing over Willard, but also one of offering advice and information. It is imagined that they are able to peel back the weight and emotion of the history of their interaction and allow themselves to be vulnerable and honest to work together toward change. By utilizing Black Lives Matter, a photo from the frontlines of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington and the Wells-Willard exchange we see the bridge of history of how deeply racism is institutionalized in the fabric of our nation and how much work we still have to do. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323376227-YIUU9OKSYGGESMA41WEB/FWHM+blog+vintage.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic Image of the Polyglot Petitions gathered by the WCTU. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531321734668-17RTEJAHQNAP8XB5B1OZ/FWHM+blog+9.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Dear Sisters. This image speaks to the long history of sexual abuse and collective efforts of women working to protect the mental and physical welfare of other women. In 1886 members of the WCTU began working to increase the age of consent. In most states at the time the age of consent was between seven and ten years old. In the following decades members of WCTU gathered fifteen thousand signatures on a polyglot petition on behalf of increasing the age of consent. Despite the signers not having the vote, they presented these signatures before congress and shortly most states increased the age of consent to between 14 and 18 years old. Today sexual predilections and violations are not so openly accepted, we have laws to protect our youngest, but there are no guarantees against sexual assault and it persists in families, on the street and in the work place. #Times Up is the legal arm that has grown out of the #MeToo movement to support the prosecutorial efforts of victims of sexual assault. In the founding days of this campaign there was a public exchange of letters that began Dear Sisters between the 700,00 members of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas and the over one thousand member Hollywood based #TimesUp legal organization. In these letters a commitment to support and uplift the voices of victims of sex crimes across race, class and occupation was made. This image hopes to capture the lengthy history of diverse women working together to protect each other from sexual abuse. I have included the official portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her career efforts to protect the rights of women and work toward empowering the voices of the under recognized and underserved. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323596256-V2GAH0BPDQBQXAFBI1NJ/FWHM+blog+vintage-4.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic Image of WCTU workers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531321849417-KA3ISY80ZWDNZXSLVC7Q/FWHM+blog_.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Futurist. Willard is often pictured wearing a Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and war, cameo pin. British suffragists wore her likeness on their cameo brooches as a sign of their commitment to the struggle and movement for suffrage. It was a dogwhistle of sorts, similar to the coded messages in Victorian flower arrangements like the tussie-mussie, more than a beautiful adornment it was a way for fellow suffragists to recognize one another. This image imagines a young woman of the 1890’s, perhaps a suffragist, looking toward an afro-futuristic strong woman for inspiration. She is looking to the future for strength rather than the past, gathering her courage from the women who have come before her, but grasping for the future on her unknown path, standing for all those who have been silenced, she wields the wisdom of Minerva but forges forward for what is to come. Perhaps others who wear the future woman symbol will recognize her as they pass, will join her on this road to societal transformation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1531323759529-J5M5G9D4IBMQF65A0RK1/FWHM+blog+vintage+10.jpg blog - A Woman's Place is in the Revolution: A Residency at the Frances Willard House. Historic portrait of Willard with Minerva cameo pin. Thank you to Lisa D who had the intuition to connect me with the Willard House, to Lori Osborne the director of the Willard House for sharing her insight into Willard’s history and supporting my vision, and to the Evanston Arts Council for believing in the project enough to provide a funding grant. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2017/11/27/ikcbtc1vr8mhnfqxa3w629smh077lr monthly 0.5 2017-11-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511818039003-M55Z2K0K7Z5P1OHMQ9HK/install-3.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511818077906-99NR3PGSL7ECB4LEQLV5/install-2.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. This morning I took down my solo show, A Nursery Rhyme for You, salvaging the work from near destruction after a pipe leak at the gallery. It came down a day early so there is a slight chance that you hoped to go to the gallery but were thwarted by an unexpected closure, or perhaps you live far away and weren't able to telepathically commute for the show. And so, I'm going to attempt to create a little bit of a virtual sense of the show here. I've included installation shots and each of the images from the show. The prints are 20"x30" and were framed in white wood without a mat or glass so they feel a bit like tangible objects one might enter into. A Nursery Rhyme for You is an umbrella project that encompasses several sub-sets of story threads, many of which have multiple images and stand alone with a more specific theme. This is an edited version of what someday will be a larger book project...ooo there I said it...someday a book project! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816443401-812I9QAMLW9NDRYBO9WY/Blog-5.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. During the duration of the show I gave an artist talk that I sheepishly mentioned to no one, hoping nobody would show up so I wouldn't have to speak. But in the end about ten people came and we had a lovely and lengthy conversation about the involved stories behind many of the images. Following is my intro to that conversation: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816471952-Q7V2QUSIN0QZHX49XJRI/Blog-3.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. In childhood we are both susceptible to the world around us and more easily able to delve into our imaginations, sometimes unable to differentiate the two or more often using our imagination to help us make sense of what is real. As adults we retreat into a world of fantasy to see more deeply into the human condition, but also to escape the horrors of it or at least make it more palatable. Story and narrative are an essential part of our ability to relate to one another, we seek refuge in story or share a story to explain something. It is the power of imagination and story that I am most captivated by and eager to delve into. As an adult I reflect back on my own childhood imagination and how it enabled me to piece together an understanding of the world, how it made mundane experiences enjoyable. I long for that space of existing on the cusp of imagination and reality. The raw sense of aliveness that it provides. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816504774-C48DWCB9G3GU8L5F9G3Q/Blog+butterflies.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816791911-2VVQF1Y892SPMV2E93DM/Blog-7.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. I feel as if having children has given me a second chance at accessing the childhood imagination. And perhaps as an adult I romanticize what it was to wander aimlessly through fields imagining myself as Laura Ingles Wilder or those hours spent sitting huddled with my sister in my great-grandmother’s attic oggling her padlocked steamer trunks, fantasizing about the possible ballgowns within or all those trips to The Met, Cooper-Hewitt and Guggenheim where I’d pretend the museum was my home. I wished so hard for each of these threads of imagination to be real and now in some ways, I bring that same sense of hopeful possibility into my making today. I want for these moments to be real. And it is my fear that children today are so overstimulated and busy that there isn’t room for the expansive space needed to unleash the imagination to its fullest capacity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816856044-T6AQ1YSTILU1JTZFHQEJ/Blog-8.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817468283-LB2R2UMQ5KA11Z6NR8HG/Blog-13.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. This series, A Nursery Rhyme for You, started from my knee jerk luddite response to contemporary culture and certain parenting choices. I am heartbroken by how often young children are handed a device or screen to keep them busy. I was raised in a household without a television. As a child of the 70’s and 80’s I could not converse with my peers about much of popular culture, but I created a world for myself to substitute for the world of television. It lacked a certain social currency that I continue to struggle with today when it comes to making conversation, but in this denial I found myself. Today it is not that I shun all access to technology for my own kids, but rather I try to help guide constructive use of it and allow time and space for them to access their deepest imagination, to explore the world as they wish for it to be. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816883367-Q4YIQ1MXM7VSZMP34D4Z/Blog-10.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511816911120-BRD9MR00BFV4MGAAZSZN/Blog-4.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817217506-18GPSQBVEGMT7CPYZTGT/Blog+for+you.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. In this era where our lives are overflowing with stimuli, keeping the brain ever engaged, I wonder if we are hindering access to our deepest creative selves. In my experience, my ideas come when my brain is given space to mull, to turn an idea over and over until it is honed, a smooth stone shinning clearly before me. As an artist I want to create the space to connect to one’s own imagination without technology, to cultivate the possibility of a more magical existence while also attempting to impart an honest sense of the world we live in today. I want, amidst the challenges and pain of a troubled world, for children to be able to imagine themselves beyond their own existence. I want to create opportunities for each of us to step into a story that is not our own, to empathize with another, to dig into a possible experience more deeply, to both dwell on and delete some of the darkness in any given scenario, to try on a moment or a feeling for size, to understand what it might be like to exist in that portal to another reality, to learn from it, but also leave it behind, as if in a dream. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817242398-LQCFRF2FC36CSIYY28C3/Blog-2.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817289264-LLF7JC57NHERYO3E8HAR/Blog-6.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817399054-C60SBMK1MEFNP1EY9FL1/blog+clown.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817441190-MGZ8A7F63OLVPVXEIO31/Blog-11.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511817507046-155VXXOO4AA4AW77WBPS/Blog-12.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. I find inspiration in dreams, fairytales and nursery rhymes, the natural world and current events. I am an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction and through narrative feel a greater connection to the world around me. It is my hope to create narrative fragments that open the possibility of expanded narratives and imagination for others, each image a stand alone snippet that can be strung together, gathering a sense of the possible stories of any given life. A Nursery Rhyme for You is my love letter to motherhood, childhood and the possibility of imagination. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511818125981-0O6D6WKX6MLB30YAMF5G/install.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1511818178015-I81KEF1PHX9IKI5UO9XD/install-4.jpg blog - A Nursery Rhyme for You. Thank you for taking the time to wander in my world for a minute. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2017/2/22/lets-talk-about-abortion monthly 0.5 2017-02-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742637596-SG5RXVZQBQHY1T7CDQ5M/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742679001-8M0A7VMZUDRBO90EK7YP/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. He said make America Great Again. Is taking away a woman's right to choose how she uses her body great? Is compromising the quality of a mother and child's life for values that are not those of the mother, great for her, her child, her community, her country? Is forcing women into back-alley abortion clinics or worse putting women in the position where they may resort to performing their own abortions great? We as a country, as women, have worked hard fighting for equality, equality in the workplace, equality in our communities, equality in our committed relationships and yet, in many instances, we have yet to achieve full parity with our male counter-parts. By having control over our own bodies, we have a greater chance of equality. As individuals we have chosen many different paths. We have worked hard to become doctors, artists, lawyers, writers, scientists, professors. We have worked hard in factories, in government, in schools, in homes. We have done our best to care for our bodies, to protect our bodies. We have stood up for the rights of ourselves and others. We have been responsible and thoughtful in our choices. We, as twenty-first century American women, and women living in America, from diverse race and class backgrounds believe that our bodies are our own. We are not here to be a host to grow a future generation if we do not so choose, we are not here to be studied, a la the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and many others, without our consent. We are here to embrace our freedom of expression, our freedom of choice and we are here to make America a more perfect union. Making these images became essential for me shortly after the inauguration. They are about preserving a woman's right to choose. The intention was to depict a woman driven to give herself an abortion at home, the results are unknown, is she hemorrhaging, in excruciating pain, resting after the exertion of performing surgery on herself, deceased? In this, she is alone, pushed into the darkness and at that moment of rest she is discovered by her daughter, or maybe visited by the ghost of another daughter. She is in a fetal position, perhaps a rebirth of herself. The hanger images are under the working titles of Not A Surgical Instrument, in reference to the history of women who have performed their own abortions using wire hangers. And the close up on the placenta and gynecological tools is entitled Never Again, never again shall we be forced back in time to a moment when we might be put in a position where we would consider performing our own abortions. The placenta and the majority of the blood used in these images are real. They are mine. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742724334-3IQ2OHBSNVK9DHOWAG07/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. Four years ago I had an abortion. At the time my daughters were two and four. As a child I longed to be the single mother of a hundred children, a sort of old woman in the shoe fantasy. But by early adulthood I questioned my desire to have children at all, questioned what sort of mother I might be and whether I should commit my life to social justice causes rather than the distraction of children. Yes, for many there is a balance and capacity to do both and more, but there is also a an expansiveness that comes with managing your own time, strictly, and not having the lives of little people, you are in charge of molding, as one of your paramount responsibilities. But, then came the day in my early thirties when my beloved asked if we should consider changing our insurance policy to include a maternity rider. I thought probably not yet. Many friends of mine had begun to have children and the biological imperative, let alone an interest in children at all, were out of my grasp. But we decided to change our insurance policy, just in case, and by the time the three months needed to prove that any pregnancy was not a pre-existing condition to signing up for the policy was up, I was counting down the days. I had been taking cod liver oil and pre-natal vitamins daily, studied the ingredients of everything I put in and on and around my body to insure ultimate health for myself and the being I might grow inside of me. I was ready, eager even. And it happened. For the first couple of weeks, before I officially knew, but I Knew, I was filled with a nearly frantic amount of energy and then it hit me like a train wreck, the hormones exploded in every part of my body and I became for all intents and purposes, an incapacitated host. I threw up constantly. I was spinning and off-balance and nauseous every second of the day. I could hardly lift my head up. I wasn't able to work. I wasn't able to think. I could barely walk. I would practically roll myself outside each day and curl up under a table clutching my throw-up bowl for hours. It was awful. I suffered every side effect known to pregnancy (well that's an exaggeration, but it felt like it at the time), my blood sugar was wacky, I had acid reflux, did I mention I was vomiting constantly. My midwife proscribed Zofran, I was weary, but four months in decided to try it. It didn't stop the vomiting, but eased the severity of it. In the end I threw up for all but two weeks of the entire pregnancy. My second pregnancy was similar, not quite as severe, but still felt for most of it, like I was barely surviving. People, dear friends and those I hardly knew, have asked how I could have had a second child given my first pregnancy. At the time, I was focused on building a family, making conscious choices about sibling spacing and the benefits of having a sibling versus an only child. I was willing and able to sacrifice my functionality for the sake of future family. I was entangled in the web of the biological imperative. And I gave myself to it fully, I co-slept with my children and nursed them both for the first two years of their lives. I was and still am enamored of my children. I am thankful for the chance to be a parent, but also feel that parenthood is not my only reason for existence, I have a larger creative imperative that I am compelled to actualize. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742817302-HPRZEV7KA36P8QHRY9SJ/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. When one day I woke up emotional, nauseous and foggy headed I thought I was sick. I thought I was exhausted, overextended. Because both of my prior pregnancies had been acts of intention, acts in which I was deeply in-tune with my body, I had known that I was pregnant and could prepare myself for the onslaught of what was to come. This third time was different. I was psychologically unprepared and of course we are unprepared for much of what happens in our lives, we can not control for all the wonder and all of the trauma, but in our most intimate spaces, that is where, in a chaotic world, we should be able to have a bit more control. And here I was vomiting and spinning and peeing on a stick. When that little plus sign revealed itself there was not a chance in the world that I could be the mother I am to my children to a third being. Not only could I not co-sleep and nurse and commit the time it takes to love and nurture a small creature, I could not endure the vomiting and complete dysfunction. How could I care for the children I already had that needed me then and there while I was splayed on a bed unable to perform basic daily acts of living? I called Planned Parenthood, but they couldn't see me for three weeks. I called my OBGYN who had once performed an abortion in our local university hospital and had been shunned for the act. I called my midwife who suggested a clinic on the west side of Chicago. They saw me the next day. We talked, they counseled me on my options, they did an ultra-sound and we set a date. Surgery only happens at the clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was snowing and cold the Thursday my husband and I showed up. There were protestors outside the parking lot yelling at us as we drove in. After check-in my husband went out to engage in rational conversation with the protestors, but they had departed. I was fuming thinking about religious and personal freedom. Wondering if the picketers believed in universal healthcare and improving the quality of our public education system. But they were gone. I was led into a locker room with a group of other women and given a gown, told to change into it and take a seat in the waiting room. We were all silent and made similar by our condition and our dress. There was some awful daytime television show on with lovers quarreling and being instigated by the host. It felt surreal. It felt as if, by virtue of our choice, we had lost some of our humanity, our dignity. This was not in fact the case, but when we exchanged our clothes for these gowns, we became a part of a universal story and not an individual story. We were women who did not want to have children, at least at that time. This was a sisterhood of a sort, but instead of feeling a sense of empowered camaraderie, the space felt shrouded by shame and anxiety. I wanted to know the story of every single woman in there, to know what had happened in her life before today, what she dreamed would happen in the days and years to come, but nobody was feeling up to conversation and so we sat watching lovers attack each other, eager to get back to our lives as we knew them. To get back to being a teenager, a college student, a young woman ready to embrace the opportunity of the life before her. While we sat there I looked around at the faces of these young women, some running to the bathroom to vomit, many clearly uncomfortable, and thought about how abortion gave all of us a second chance. A chance to be more intentional with our lives. To give life to an unwanted child feels like a trauma unto itself, both for the mother and the child for whatever reason. And there are many reasons not to have children. For me, given the trends of a warming climate, (it is 72 degrees today in Chicago, it is February 2017. My children wore shorts and t-shirts to school today.) the legacy we are leaving behind for future generations will likely be one of great suffering. We are seeing climate refugees all over the globe and this is merely a beginning of mass migrations. We will continue to see conflicts over increasingly limited resources. Wealthy nations, ahem, are closing their borders and devising schemes to keep out those who seek the possibility of a new life with access to clean water, food, healthcare. I fear that this is the trend for humanity, that wealthy nations that consume the majority of the world's resources and contribute most to the warming of the planet will become these protectionist spaces, exploiters safe havens. I do not want that for my children or my grand-children or any of the people of the world. By having children in a first world country I am contributing to global warming, despite my efforts to counter the impact. And so for me, one less child was a little less impact. Some would question why I had children at all then, the reasons, perhaps, are purely selfish. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742855728-A9KHKIH5J1KVLB05YDW8/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742890015-I01Y6TRE0CXITGBRE8PL/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. It feels entirely unnecessary for me to have to rationalize my abortion or my choices as a mother, and yet today, as we live and breath, so many voices are ignored and silenced by the hegemony of the current highest office holder and his cohort, and so it feels essential that each of us voice our stories, that each of us hear the stories of others, that we listen and understand and feel empathy, that we put ourselves in other people's shoes, see from many perspectives. I saw those women in the waiting room with me. I understood that each of them had life choices to make that did not involve being pregnant or raising a child at that time and I hold their choice dear. I have worked with people who are "pro-life" around anti-death penalty legislation and I know that we can find points of agreement and see each others' humanity, but it remains inconceivable to me how people who are "pro-life" can impose their personal belief upon others who do not share it. They will not be living with the unwanted child, paying for it's education, doctor's bills, food, clothing, shelter and even if that child becomes wanted by its birth mother, is it fair for us as a society to have changed the course of a woman's life when she may have dreamed of a different path? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1487742922054-O2C1FF8NE7471KG6637X/image-asset.jpeg blog - Let's Talk About Abortion. As I write, I realize that I'm not even beginning to scrape the surface of this issue and that I have only talked about choice and dreams and haven't mentioned adoption, rape, birth control options and conditions, outside of hyperemesis , that might threaten the health of a mother during pregnancy, I haven't talked about so much and I want to. I want to stand proud as a believer in choice. Yesterday a dear friend and fellow photographer shared the Shout Your Abortion project with me, in which images of women wearing T-shirts that say Everyone Knows I Had An Abortion are being projected out of doors on huge spaces, buildings, walls, screens. This is inspiring and I am learning more! We are all standing up for so many issues we believe in now, if and when the next Supreme Court Justice is confirmed keep Roe v. Wade in your sites. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, fight like hell for legal abortion in your state. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2016/4/4/gone-tomorrow monthly 0.5 2016-04-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459883943869-AYYFEH2N0L8DI7HGWF84/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459883981254-B21WRVZ2Z14SD6G131LI/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   There’s this place far from here, it’s my happy place. It’s where I grew up spending summer, it’s where my father grew up spending summer, heck it’s a place where my great-grandmother spent her summers and is now the year round home to many of my family members. It is an island attached by a spit of sand to a larger better known island. It is an island with large swaths of land under conservation which means extensive woods for exploring or just disappearing for a dash gazel like through the trees. And from the South-East corner of the island stretches a huge expanse of pristine publicly accessible beach. I love this place for it’s lack of commercial businesses, for it’s quiet sandy roads, it’s craggy moss covered trees, it’s devoted year round residents. I love this place for the slant of the sun and how it reflects off of natural and built surfaces in the Spring and Fall, for the oasis and connection to family and history it provides, for the small farm that set-up shop a few years back that now feels like an essential expression of all that is great about this place. It is a place reminiscent of a once quieter coastal New England culture. But, as the main island has become increasingly popular and monied over the past few decades, it has become a posh retreat of the uber-monied andinaccessible to most. A place where crumbling summer cottages built in the 1930’s are purchased for millions of dollars to be torn down and replaced by oversized four season homes worthy of Architectural Digest. It is a place where history is both lost and repeated. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884023899-E0XMZS4CC8OZ3UVNH921/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884052312-VDKBR0BZPI95CMPSY2DV/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   On a late afternoon Easter walk with my intrepid mother I found myself in the debris of a soon to be demolished home, a home once loved and lived in by the same family for generations, a home nearly ready to tumble over the edge of a cliff to the ocean below. I entered through the sawed off kitchen wall and immediately felt a sense of walking into the past, the unpainted wooden walls, the windows rattling in their casements, the hollow space where a clawfoot tub once stood. It all echoed with the life of a time gone by. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884087249-I7NS7PUP4WBGL1EJCK5O/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884142383-9TR6AV27ABFGLQQG3BIF/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   My grandparents had the greatest stories of gathering family and friends on this little island. I remember eating floating islands and Kool-Whip at my great-grandmother’s dinning table on Sunday afternoons as we watched fleets of sailboats racing in the bay and I attempted to keep up my end of the conversation with ancient men in navy blue blazers and pink pants while studying the length of their nose and ear hairs. Oh and the family of sunrise skinny dippers two houses down who we once envied and have now become. All of it is a treasure. A treasure that like sand through an hourglass is fast slipping away. When my grand-father passed away in late 2014 the extended family summer home, that my great grand-mother purchased in the 1940’s, was handed down to the next generation of five siblings all of whom have children and then some of us have children. It has become a complicated dance as we all attempt to slot into the summer calendar our precious few weeks where we pile on top of each other and make merry in our festive traditions of mud pie competitions, clam bakes, agricultural fair attendance, road races and general summer lazing about with our noses in books. It is a story many have told before where the cost of ownership and maintenance becomes increasingly complex and costly for the expanding generations. For the moment we all remain deeply in love with the place and are thankful for the chance to care for and spend time here when we can. It’s a sort of a time share with history where none of us could individually afford to purchase or maintain a place such as this, and so we are a network of caretakers connected by love and blood devoted to preserving this piece of our past. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884179327-5QWKEAD94BO5R06M5Y62/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459885306825-HO3YYWJV51BW1RC8ESAE/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884217175-PEX7RTQF15VS97G6YDTI/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.     I dream of what it would be like to spend extended periods of time here, perhaps live full time on this island, but my real life doesn’t allow for it for more than one reason. And so my romantic emotional idealism is allowed to persist. I can wish for the past to persist, for my children to be able to spend two weeks of their childhood summers frolicking with their cousins in a place steeped in family lore. And I can document this sense of place while I’m here knowing that in time it will all slip from our grasp, as the past does, slowly fraying until it becomes a hazy dream replaced by something new. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884264559-OYS6DKVQEJB586HPEDMX/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884307424-OBTFJBLJYY56M7628HWA/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459885342514-ALOZ2348USZPVWOKCDKB/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884441006-UTFGIS3KWY6Z3Y9EPARG/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884474807-D4ZD9IZ2O5RKEHBJG5XO/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   * * * https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884530868-TLOO3NN48CISCSDYLARP/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   An insightful friend told me recently after looking at the photos I took of my grandparents home of nearly 60 years, that I will be chasing that house, that home, for years to come. I venture to think the rest of my days. My grandparents were unsentimental innovators, whereas I am a deeply sentimental visual-emotional nostalgic. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884565430-PKUEJ4YJJ3HLPKJH1588/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884600164-810ABNMKW0ARTGU7KFFJ/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884636163-8ZZ8WP16G4271FVQTYXB/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884676361-7BVN5974BT9EZVUGEGMT/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   So when I was on a bike ride a few weeks ago and my wheels spun me some fifteen miles north of familiar territory and I saw signs for a demolition sale, something told me, in the town, in the neighborhood that I was in, that this would be a vintage gem and oh glorious yes it was. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459884707987-WTJBKITQ5498JO8I0H8W/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1459885094884-QAS5KBARXSRCWGEU3LAG/image-asset.jpeg blog - gone tomorrow.   It was a space, although nearly empty, was resonant and echoing with the ghosts of life lived. Heavily wallpapered, with matching drapes, crumbling plaster and fraying wires it heaved with breath. Somebody had lit a fire in the fireplace and for a brief moment the hearth was filled with light, life. I could almost hear the clinking glasses and tinkling laughter of a 1957 cocktail party, women with pearls and black hourglass dresses, children dressed in pajamas and robes laying on their bellies at the top of the stairs peering through the railing to catch a glimpse of arriving guests. Walking through the cracks in the present into the past, even if just for a fleeting second, oh how it thrills me! Maybe I should be wearing colonial dress and working in a reenactment museum, hmmm…maybe not. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2016/3/23/my-family-and-other-animals monthly 0.5 2016-03-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753198322-5ZSM2GWSHWYZD6B6YA7O/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753226427-3B581FDQ1M55Z277VSXU/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals...   Oh dear friends I am all a flutter with dreaming up stories, making props like dresses and geese, acquiring props like the above composition dolls from the 1930's and setting up moments. The ideas are coming so quickly now I'm squirreling them away in a notebook and hoping that someday they'll come to be. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753250207-A2O8NG1EKJ8BGRKE6YOI/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals...     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753285528-DN8JPWPHL2B375CD57IG/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753374625-SYJU6D4SJLW2I7KRAHDF/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals...   Some of these recent images will be a part of my upcoming show, Elements of Mystery, opening on Thursday March 31st at Perspectives Gallery, 1310 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, Il. There will be an artists reception on April 2nd from 5-8p.m. and an artists talk on April 21st at 7p.m. I will be sharing the space with fellow gallery member Mark Kaufman, and guest photographers Juan Giraldo and Victor Yanez-Lazcano curated by Albi Gallery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753539163-XFRZH36YSN4QF4B1TH19/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753638809-M625RWGBDXAXJT9GP4W0/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753326626-2S5C7EXYQX8VY6JIXVFW/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753478764-INSE06P2SKWCIGEDBXP3/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals...   I've been working on a little artist's statement about my work that reads something like this: As a child some weekends we visited my grandparents in a farmhouse of decaying grandeur in New Jersey and other weekends we’d stay home and traipse through the halls of great New York City museums. I always imagined how these places could be different, how they were a portal to another time, an imagined life. In the attic of my grandparents' home there were dust covered steamer trunks filled with ballgowns while the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art offered a glimpse into the interiors of early American homes. I dreamt of wearing these ballgowns and living in a different era, but despite my dreamy nature I never got much beyond dress-up in shoddy 1970’s halloween costumes. As the mother of two girls with fanciful imaginations in an era when unfettered childhood fantasy is interrupted or negated by an abundant access to technology I have sought to preserve and create for my daughters a little bit of the magic I longed to have brought into my childhood reality. I find great inspiration in fairytales as well as the world around me. Every fairytale has a dark side, the death of a parent, the loss of a power. In an era of social and political upheaval and environmental degradation, the dreams and fantasy of a child are effected and shaped by the external forces buzzing in the world around them. At home our conversations move from topics of migration, to an exploration of old time dance steps, to what a potential leader might do with their power, to the backstory of a historical American Girl Doll. All of these bits and musings come into play when I am making pictures, the dreams mingled with the harshness of reality. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1458753587852-MNOLG42KKWKC2IA05ER0/image-asset.jpeg blog - my family and other animals...   So that's my shtick, perhaps you'll join me to celebrate. I'm a bit over the moon about sharing this work with the world. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2016/2/11/showered-with-love monthly 0.5 2016-02-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1455219889256-MDO9C5YDTTHOKODRBRVI/image-asset.jpeg blog - showered with love. after the valentines are made. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1455220015470-2L90F12AMLBDER45NRAB/image-asset.jpeg blog - showered with love.   Hello dear friends! I just wanted to pop-in and say howdy. The beginning of 2016 has been whisking along with several opportunities to share and show work from Texas, to Vermont to right here in E-town with more to come over the course of the next few months. Check out the News & Events page for upcoming shows. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1455220207106-LKTTRU8BB3PVGUBG6V27/image-asset.jpeg blog - showered with love.   On another note it is nearly Valentine's Day. What say you? Yes, Valentine's Day. A day for me, every since a frigid and fateful 14th of February eight years ago, that is now synonymous with laboring and childbirth. My beloved joked with me through out my pregnancy that if our daughter was born on Valentine's Day we would of course be naming her Moxie Valentina Amore Zises. So I held out an extra twenty-seven minutes for a name that was not informed by a holiday of the hallmark variety. And here she is eight years later brimming with love and life and exuberance, yes, plenty of amore. Okay, so the photo above might not appear to represent such a state of being, but I promise she is. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1455219980128-9ATI2CXJYYD9Z1V7POT5/image-asset.jpeg blog - showered with love.   If you are in need of a last minute Valentine head on over to DragonFly at 1309 Chicago Ave, Evanston, where some of my handmade cards are up for grabs, along with several heart garlands, dolls and an encaustic piece. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1455220340719-1U82PSTHB47YZYRS8BN5/image-asset.jpeg blog - showered with love.   And if you missed Artifical Turf in January, there is one last chance to see the show at 1610 Payne Street, Evanston, Il on Wednesday the 17th from 10a.m. until noon. Coffee and treats will be served. Twelve talented women poured their hearts into this effort and it shows. Hope to see you there! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/12/4/elements-of-mystery monthly 0.5 2016-01-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449258107493-VZJ3IOR3NV5GBBZZ7AAR/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449258244981-1QJCTVTLRGH5DM8TTFRU/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery.   I think I've mentioned this before, but I have a certain love of the magical, the perhaps impossible, improbable, the beauty in the unknown, the mysterious. I love books like Midnight Circus, The Miniaturist, and The Museum of Extraordinary Things. All trundle you back in time to a place of somewhat tormented life with a magical escape that informs life with a bit more nuanced meaning, mystery and from a readers perspective, enchanting beauty. It ain't all wine and roses, but something about it invites you in, makes you want to peer a little closer, step into the experience, explore those moments, wander around and soak it all in. Sooo, thus begins my next project, Elements of Mystery. I'm hoping to create images that maybe don't tell you the whole story, maybe suggest a bit of the pain, exhaustion, wonder or possibility in any given scenario. Maybe a young girl artist takes flight in a suitcase and lands on a beach where possibility begins or dreams of a ship carrying her family across stormy seas to a new life only to learn of it's capsize. I'm excited for this next adventure in image making, for conjuring up the experiences and some how bringing them into being. Here's to catching butterflies, playing to the death, woodland tea parties, merging beings with your spirit animal and oh so much more. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449258316000-7VSUDBYRT0AUDUF5I424/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449258400859-I4ZLBYOPV05Q3SRDK6BU/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449513708673-MK102DO8UDQWXW5XF4EQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449262335008-SYTS1I1CSG4NHB2CSLMP/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449259036825-9BL7ABBTWW79D12MC8EK/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1449259104324-4U7EBO0MXDTU4ADIG1QU/image-asset.jpeg blog - elements of mystery.   Here's wishing you and yours a happy new year filled with turning over new leaves! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/11/18/the-one-who-is-missing monthly 0.5 2015-11-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876376560-RL4COBCL0GPBC2DF4B7Q/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. portrait of a widowed mother. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876417687-EQULE4RY1E5TL5KQUK2J/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. dinner without you. I have a certain long time love affair with photography. A love that has enchanted me in one way or another since I was small. I remember as a child sifting through the images of my parents as children, young adults, getting married. It was a life before mine, yet linked. It was as though through the portal of an image I emerged into a memory that was my own, yet wasn't. Bits and pieces were familiar, places, unlined faces of people I only knew with the marks of time weighing upon them, the mirrors of wisdom. There was so much kindredness in these moments that I would feel myself slip into the revery, the memory, of the pictured moment. A story would spin and I would be there and I would smell the scent of roast beef and mint jelly wafting in from the kitchen, see the cast off toys just out of frame, hear the voice of my great-grand mother chortling as she drew images of her famed wisligumps. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876467581-AJ7R4Y1ZA7BZL9EY0FA0/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. what he would have read. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876500896-6K0GUYATPM3G7CYC3689/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. he loved me, he loved me not, he loved me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876544576-A0PZRUWN41XNAJOCY7XS/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. i will keep you safe. Photography seems to do this like no other medium. It offers us the opportunity to dip into an experience, to construct all the other circumstances surrounding a moment from what we see. It stimulates our senses and imagination. Sure now a days we have things like the virtual reality helmet that stimulates all five sense such that we can momentarily be transported into another life, another moment. This phenomena perhaps allows us a more tangible experience of what it would be like to be in a given place at a given time. I read once about a Masai man's virtual reality experience of being in Mongolia at a horserace and he talked vividly about the thrill of watching the tangle of horses hurtling along, the rush of voices and clattering hooves, dust clouds, how the experience was palpable. And perhaps we all need a larger dose of this in our lives, to step into a lifeboat full of refugees as the coast line of Greece rises into view. But for me there is something about these moments arrested, captured and held that is everlasting. The image of the boat from the shore, the tangle of horses in the dust cloud. A photograph allows for meditation on what is fleeting. To hold these moments in our hands like so many grains of sand, there is something to this. Something to this space for repeated reflection. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876590707-3IR374YXH9Z3NB9FEF7C/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. parallel play. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876615010-OO77Q68M5TJBIGO0TQJP/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. a convergence of the spirit animals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876646482-CDD4752G7I7CGGNHM6AB/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. ghost of the wanted child. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876677933-ZPCKK9RHHAU8CE6NBY38/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. to keep this house afloat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876721130-NPNF4SEXNFXOAFOC9TUB/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. alone in a great wood. This fall I began a photo essay collaboration with a dear friend. We both hold a strong creative imperative as central to our lives and share a certain aesthetic, so it made my heart skip a beat when she agreed to let me tell a piece of her story, to take a piece of her story and run it through my own mill of imagining and projection and then put it out in the world. Five years ago she lost her beloved in a harrowing battle to ALS. She was left with the struggle of moving forward without the father of her daughter, without the man she had imagined building home and growing old with. Instead of an expanding family and life there was a space of loss, an imposed contraction. This photo story glimpses at the grief and emptiness of loss while hoping to reflect the deep love between a mother and a daughter. Without fleshing out the story much more for you, I hope this takes you in for a moment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876775871-KBB77ML25NLTFZ3ASPJB/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. biding farewell to your ghost. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876806733-1D1IGSGHSMY56GNDH5X0/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. what she held on to. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1447876886992-XOGCSGCALT6FO3G7EBH9/image-asset.jpeg blog - the one who is missing. to bury the past is not to forget. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/6/10/photos-wax monthly 0.5 2015-09-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965458594-K8WVTRHXGLJ0342W0EQI/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1438703064010-SHFTGA0MXGRWM73KVQIM/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax.   As a mother confronted with the harsher realities of our world, I struggle with how much to share with my children and how much they will understand. We talk about war, about what life would be like if we had to leave our home and everything we know for the unstable unknown, about poverty, disease and disaster; we talk about the environment and our effect on it, about the choices we make and how they effect others both in our immediate circles and on a larger scale, but sometimes I still hold on to the potential for magic, for fairytale. Fairytales are after all, most especially in the case of the Brother's Grimm, filled with the often unpleasant realities of life, mostly death and maltreatment. But there is a flip side to those tales, one of mystery, of curiosity, wonderment, exploration, overcoming and sometimes empowerment that speaks to me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965425288-K2LXRFDW5YGTMM2CI8D7/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1438703015719-SV9X62R59H06RU7AF7EG/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1438703197501-ZYVO8KFA0CF882JSW7RS/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965665251-6B7DMFSSX7RAJ6BL95B6/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax.   These tales offer a lens, a filter through which we can see and navigate the world; to understand that we can hold on to the joy and wonderment and curiosity that is not always right in front of us. It is with this idea in mind that I set out to capture various moments of my girls' childhood, to preserve them and possibly reveal an underlying story. There are conflicts and struggles and resistances in our everyday life, but there is also magic and oh do i love that magic. It comes in so many forms and flavors and with an abundance of possibility. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433969691031-5SFWJX539GGUNI6HFV6D/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1438703261656-YJ4BHO1GWX2L23H29A9P/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433969753456-CCZCQ55AJNM9VQUF71RL/image-asset.jpeg blog - photos & wax.   Last Spring I took a workshop with the lovely Leah MacDonald, she creates a magical world that speaks to me deeply. I left her studio with oh so many images swirling in my head and felt like I had come home in a multitude ways, crossed a threshold of mixed-medium art that made me tingle all over with excitement and possibility. The past few months have been busy and chaotic, but I've been trying to grab moments here and there to put the tools I picked up working with Leah into practice. This is where I begin, this wax, these images, a griddle and many brushes, my journey toward fog shrouded mystical landscapes, a rabbit hole of possibility. I hope you enjoy them! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/8/14/in-the-time-of-flowers-revisited monthly 0.5 2015-08-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439571072448-E1V1VQ13AIHYDIB0QY7B/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439773781191-C3HQJ2I3OGKG526CVPXO/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited.   There is something about the preciousness of youth and the the preciousness of flowers, how each passes like sand through an hourglass, changing and shifting with the drop of each grain. There is a vulnerability to each, but also a tenacity and an impressionability countered by a bold unique spirit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439586169789-WOSP9OW06XWHQVKFZLBE/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439586037253-WQWB423NSY3GR5J20A34/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited.   Summer and the season of growing whisks past at a heart-thundering pace. Many blooms shine for just a few brief days or weeks and then they are gone, a memory of profound beauty. When they are just unfolding toward blossom they posses a mysterious unknown. They are preparing to show their face to the world, to reveal a glorious power, a full expression. It is the stress of heat, the response to being pruned, the experience of time that presses a bloom into being, toward its fullest articulation. From my perspective as a parent, after the age of three the clip of childhood can seem devastating. Everyday is something new, a hunger to learn, to grow, to experience and with the turn of each page our babes are growing into themselves, cultivating an independence, a curiosity outside of the box, however expansive, that we have shown and shared with them. They are revealing themselves to us, growing into themselves. It is with every moment a molding is occurring, They are figuring and finding who they are and want to be and become. They are trying on the different hats of identity and picking those that feel most familiar, most comfortable to be, what they share with the world, how they will face forward. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439571449126-CWZ6X8RZTSJJDMFZVE06/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited.   A few weeks ago as I wondered how I was going to chronicle the flowers I've grown this summer in my backyard mini-flower farm, I thought about all the dear friends of my daughters and dear daughters of my friends, there many expressions, the depth and sense of self they posses and pondered the potential of marrying the two. I asked a few friends if their dear ones might be willing to frolic on this fringe of enchantment, and so here we are with me gathering flowers from my garden and roaming the alleys near by to harvest the wild bounty before we draw and dapple the grasses with orbs and specks of botanical bits. I am so excited for the commencement of this project in earnest, to see all of these girls and flowers in similar repose, yet still so distinct. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1439571505965-3CQJDCOJI6H0WA1UIN61/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, revisited.   It is a moment, in the time of flowers and in the time of youth, to preserve two kindred spirits of fleeting untold wonder. Often my nostalgic heart fills with the intriguing dream of time travel to the past. What if we could go back, delve just for a minute into the experience of some instant, unfold the layers of what has been. There is a way in which in making these images, I am hoping to hold on to all this that is fleeting. To let it wash over me and at the same time, when the flowers have wilted and the girls grown, their past will still be here looking me in the face. The passage of time will have ticked by and yet the rawness from whence they came will still be. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/6/10/mark-making monthly 0.5 2015-07-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965154211-UOQSRDOAM8WVZ75IWL8D/image-asset.jpeg blog - mark making. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965183920-MN6C78KI26W35XQNS6ML/image-asset.jpeg blog - mark making.   A teacher of mine recently mentioned to me how we are all mark makers of a sort, each of us drawn to different styles of imprinting on to substrates. Some of us are lovers of lines and gashes on our surfaces, others of us are more orbicular. I fall into the orbicular camp. I have always, always, always loved circles. This love comes from somewhere deep and primal, somewhere inexplicable yet profoundly connected. There is something relatable about spheres, dare I say universal. When we tilt our heads skyward our eyes (iris and pupils, orbs on their own) are met with these circular symbols of cosmic unity, the sun, moon, distant planets and stars. The circle is infinite, without end or beginning, a constant filled with potential in each turn around the sun.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965206235-0N0NBUYFKKXJGSJEAIWK/image-asset.jpeg blog - mark making.   And somehow, in my sometimes near-sited experience of life, I had no idea of this concept that we are each of us drawn to different marks, linear or spherical, that we might be divided into groups who see and feel the world through these lenses. I have to admit that I am a bit curious about what marks others are drawn to and how those marks are possible expressions of our inner selves, maps that we might share with the world, where we might find commonality. When I look back at so many pieces I have made over the years the circle is repeated time and again, woven into the background, highlighted in the foreground, layered one on top of another. Despite all this repetition, when I am at a loss of where to go, a cross-roads, or at the inception of a new medium the circle is where I begin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965231417-IMTMBTQHNYU7VFRDIRK1/image-asset.jpeg blog - mark making.   Over the past year I have dabbled in the world of encaustics, dripping and spreading and molding hot wax, but much of this experimentation has been colorless. And I thought my love of beeswax in its pure form, unpigmented, would be enough, that I would find my color elsewhere. But, slowly a curiosity of how I might weave color into my dabblings bloomed. And so this project came to be, an exploration of circles layered one on top of the next, each piece a study in a different color. The base layer, buried beneath the waxen surface, is fueled by color coded circles cut from my not very small collection of paper amassed over the years, a stash of letters, calendars, holiday cards, chocolate wrappers, gifting wrapping, advertising postcards, the paper the lined my grandmother's sock drawer, ticket stubs and oh so much more, a history in color. Over the past year I have dabbled in the world of encaustics, dripping and spreading and molding hot wax, but much of this experimentation has been colorless. And I thought my love of beeswax in its pure form, unpigmented, would be enough, that I would find my color elsewhere. But, slowly a curiosity of how I might weave color into my dabblings bloomed. And so this project came to be, an exploration of circles layered one on top of the next, each piece a study in a different color. The base layer, buried beneath the waxen surface, is fueled by color coded circles cut from my not very small collection of paper amassed over the years, a stash of letters, calendars, holiday cards, chocolate wrappers, gifting wrapping, advertising postcards, the paper the lined my grandmother's sock drawer, ticket stubs and oh so much more, a history in color. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1433965251250-80AMAKNLD13ZAVG2W8LS/image-asset.jpeg blog - mark making.   I am very excited to share these pieces in a more public space this Friday evening at the Zhou B Art Center during their monthly Third Fridays event. They will be on display in Studio 303 from 7-10p.m. I will be there to commune with you and yours, and in all likelihood if you want to try your hand at playing with hot wax, you just might get the chance to do so. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/5/18/chasing-memory monthly 0.5 2015-05-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431965344139-L6VUNECZO0DC863RHU9H/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966555826-YCE0CYIBV3V8ZUL60RVI/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory.   Since late December I've been overcome with a deep nostalgia. The morning after Christmas my grandfather passed from his earthly body into the great beyond. He had been a rock for our extended family, an anchor to which we all held. We as a family have gathered around him and my late grandmother for the entirety of our lives. In this gathering we have grown as individuals and more deeply into ourselves. The sense of place they created, the life with which they imbued every moment, has informed a great deal of who I am, and serves as an endless well of inspiration. Back in January, knowing that the home in which they resided for over sixty years was soon to be passed out of our family, I took a trip with my girls in tow to attempt to capture some of my own memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966577548-40TO5E229BET8RD348DF/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory.   I had a deep yearning for my girls to experience a bit of my own childhood, the hours picking raspberries and wandering through the fields, sneaking chocolate from high up kitchen cabinets, pondering the plants in my grandmother's greenhouse, sitting with my grandparents watching the muppets during cocktail hour...I wanted to, at the very least, put my children into the space where so many of my memories come from, chronicle brief moments so that they might remember or imagine a little of what being there was like. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966604858-JSECWS6SLLJKVG1RJNK5/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966643306-2IVOHUK305DA559O6B9E/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966669109-DSJFWTDHAMN2P3MY6ZW2/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory.   In our brief time making memory there I tried to capture some semblance of the magic that existed in our midst. Since then I've been a bit obsessed with harnessing memory before it slips like so much sand through our fingers. Part of this seems informed by a sense of the fleetingness of each moment, the fact that my own girls are already four and seven, that in not too many years the magic of childhood will shift into the moodiness of adolescents and perhaps our closeness will shift. All of it, of course, is ever shifting, and that's the beauty right? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966694814-LGP9ABX2EYULOCPST9QZ/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966754156-PVDQMQDCT25ARUMZZRRF/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory.   So here I am with a camera in hand, grasping at the ephemera around me. I long to chronicle snippets of the past combined with life in the present, and have been cajoling friends and coaxing my own kids to let me capture these moments for them. Last weekend my girls and I packed up the car and took a jaunt out to two magical spots. One where we watched a puppet show cabaret in an old dairy barn, and the other where we frolicked with dandelions and the endless wishes that they offer. These are a few of the moments that slipped around us on a summer's like eve. The banter of these two had me giggling as they imagined themselves and their wishes down a secret dirt road to an oasis in the woods. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1431966797397-JMB3ZMNHIVM412VLMOO0/image-asset.jpeg blog - chasing memory.   They were the forest bound wood sprites creeping out to gather dandelion, root, leaf and seed, to feed upon and wish... They conjured me the suspect lady with a lens peeping on their adventures. I tried to blend into the grasses, my hair waving before my eyes, dangling like so many branches around us. There was an over grown garden, stone walls, woods and fields. We called this day Bliss. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/3/19/playing-with-hot-wax monthly 0.5 2015-04-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1426792612062-1VAUVIV04X0QWODJQ7QE/image-asset.jpeg blog - playing with hot wax. Pollinate. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1426792892601-DV4PX9KQVXHIE5Z8KB26/squared.jpg blog - playing with hot wax. Squared. Oh friends I spent the tail end of winter playing with hot wax and, be still my beating heart, was it ever dreamy. I'm a bit smitten. Last summer I began dabbling in the art of encaustics. Got myself an old griddle from the secondhand store, heated up a bunch of beeswax and slathered it onto several flower prints. I spent way too much time with a heatgun attempting to make meticulously smooth surfaces, but the results thrilled me. After reading several books and watching umpteen youtube videos on encaustics I decided to take a class in technique. Last summer I used the wax as a coating, but did not incorporate multiple layers or color. This class I just completed was a spring board that sent me flying into a world of layers and color. Most of my pieces began with a watercolor painting or drawing as the base layer and then were layered with various bits of paper, dried flowers and drawings. I carved into the wax and filled it with encaustic paints. I etched into the wax and filled it with oil paint. I ironed the wax. I scrapped away layers to reveal the heart of the piece. Manipulating this waxy medium is not exactly easy, but the process of relinquishing a bit of control to the experience was a sort of meditation, a portal to my own heart. And so one more tool has been added to my maker's box and oh girl am I excited about it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1426792915650-LYNSCW7LOFU43DONB496/image-asset.jpeg blog - playing with hot wax. A Gardener's Heart is in Her Hands. To add to this excitement my teacher, the lovely Jenny Learner, will be showcasing my work at the Zhou B Art Center this Friday on the gallery wall outside of her studio as a part of their monthly 3rd Friday event. Three of my pieces will be on display: Polinate, Waiting for Spring and A Gardener's Heart is in Her Hands. Below are brief descriptions of each of the pieces. I'd love for you to come see. The event begins at 7p.m. and runs until 10p.m. at 1029 W 35th St, Chicago, IL. I will be there from 7p.m. until 8p.m. to answer questions and hobnob with you and yours. Pollinate: For years I have dreamed of keeping bees. I sleep with the Beekeeper’s Bible next to my bed and am prone to researching the pros and cons of different hive styles late into the night. Colony collapse has been a greater inspiration and of course the delight of urban beekeeping and providing a local home for urban pollinators continues to color my imaginings. This year I hope to expand my backyard urban farm into a flower farm and next year, bees, perhaps! This piece is a watercolor collage encaustic conjuring of the mystical path of such dreams. Waiting for Spring: Each year as we creep from Winter to Spring I wait with baited breath as the snow turns to rain and the sun shines ever brighter, ever longer. I wait for the time when we can be out of doors unswaddled by winter woolens. I wait for the time when we can tromp through the mucky woods in rubber boots. And, I wait for the time when we can plunge our hands into the earth, burying seeds in hopes of new growth. This piece is a watercolor collage encaustic in the spirit of this waiting. A Gardener’s Heart is in Her Hands: I have so many memories of my grandmother gardening, puttering in greenhouses, on her knees in the garden, dressed in cheery colors. She had a passion for plants that ran deep from orchids to herbs. Her love covered the vast territory of horticulture. This piece, a watercolor collage encaustic, attempts to conjure the beauty and love that she brought to her botanical endeavors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1429122685883-YPFMG1IM59QGNON1MXJ8/image-asset.jpeg blog - playing with hot wax. Waiting for Spring. I have also been playing with wax resists and dying paper and stitching bits back into said paper. My studio is strewn with strands of folded, dyed, stitched papers...just wanted to share a peek at that too, more on this too come. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1426792983835-Z5UMB9HJ6ZIAOZ8JKYR5/image-asset.jpeg blog - playing with hot wax.     Cheerio for now! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/2/27/the-mended-snowball monthly 0.5 2015-03-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1425070023488-JXURN7RDNYEJNUVQGRNM/image-asset.jpeg blog - the mended snowball.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1425070118109-Z3IHQBCV40ANXBHMD9S2/image-asset.jpeg blog - the mended snowball.   The great thaw is about to begin. Yes, right now the temperature is rising above thirty degrees and it is projected to stay there soaring above frozen rigidity for more than a brief moment. February 2015 was tied for the coldest Chicago February on record with 1875, and we felt it. We felt it with our frozen fingers and frozen toes, bitter winds blistering our cheeks and keeping us unbrave indoors. Meanwhile the polar ice sheets are at the third lowest February ice coverage in recorded history and if the ice sheets don't expand over the next few weeks they could be at an all time low of winter ice coverage. We here in the Midwest and Eastern United States have been the recipients of the jet-stream carrying cold air from last summer's extreme polar ice melt which has stagnated over us and inundated us with extreme cold and record snowfalls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1425070052047-PBHUWDAAUO0RJC7N367F/image-asset.jpeg blog - the mended snowball.   Despite enjoying the thrills and abundance winter has brought to our doorstep, I do fear for the future of winter, when the polar ice caps have melted, sea levels have risen and the jet stream doesn't have the punch backed by ice melt to drop such a chilling bounty upon our bodies shrouded in woolens and gortex. My girls have so loved the few days after fresh snow has fallen and the temperature hovers just above twenty and it is warm enough to build snow forts and frolic out of doors. Those perfect days have been few, but enough to find a little happiness out of doors and vitamin E. I love both the hibernation induced by winter and the character built by the suffering (and joy) it brings. Yes running along the lake front at 6 degrees can be harrowing and painful, but life affirming and invigorating all the same. The same can be said for building snow forts or trudging the mile against bitter winds to my children's school. There is great joy in knowing winter, in marking time through the rhythms of seasonal change, of coming indoors to warm up knowing we have been transformed a little through our endurance of choosing to be out of doors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1425070140177-JYM3SBMR991KWSMK3OVO/image-asset.jpeg blog - the mended snowball.   Given the likely trajectory of our global temperatures, I have thought a lot about Winter's future. What if ice and snow are no longer synonymous with winter? What if sledding and snow shoeing and cross country skiing become folklore that our great grandchildren wonder about the truth of? What if Dubai's indoor ski mountain somehow becomes normalized? What will happen to our fortitude? Our perseverance? Our growing cycles? Which species will die and which will thrive? How precipitously will our water sources decline? Perhaps we'll pump fewer fossil fuels into the air in winter as we will need to heat our homes less? Perhaps the snow will continue to fall. But what if it doesn't? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1425070076892-RJHECGSPW0KX2E8ZJHDV/image-asset.jpeg blog - the mended snowball.   If it doesn't will we make mock snowballs for our children to play with and tell them stories about the good ole' days of igloos and ice skating, of snow men and angels? Will we endeavor to find joy in an earth deprived of her chance to sleep? How over tired she might become, her fields no longer dormant in winter. Given all of this potential I am offering up one mended snowball. Both, as an effort to repair the damage we have already done, to mend some minuscule aspect of our changing climate, but also to provide some vague memory for future generations of how it might have been, snow rolled on snow to form balls, balls for chucking at our buddies in the park, balls for building frosty beings to converse with and dream about. This giant snowball is made from my grandmother's vintage cashmere sweaters, worn thin and loved for their softness and warmth. They have been bundled and stitch together, a warm barrier in the cold, a symbol of winter's past and the warmth needed turned into winter's future and the search for snow flush with playfulness and joy. So get out there and love the cold while we have it. Embrace the ice and snow, but then of course, relish the warmth that is about to sweep across our doorsteps. I for one am pretty excited about it.   **Okay so the extreme cold temperatures caused my poor mock snowball to deflate a bit. Please pardon her wrinkles. Have no fear, there are treatments for such things. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/2/15/keeper-of-the-last-garden monthly 0.5 2015-02-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1424038094551-PE2BFZDYZUMF99XH7WO2/image-asset.jpeg blog - keeper of the last garden. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1424038195862-P97KVW6Q2KEKI8SKK5JD/image-asset.jpeg blog - keeper of the last garden. I never used to think of myself as a dystopian artist, my work has often been hopeful even whimsical, seeking out the beauty in our world despite the havoc we as humans reap upon this earth. But as the results of our pillage of the planet have become more dire, I have begun to imagine the possible bleakness in our future. What if we stand by and continue to allow the status quo to proceed, to pump infinite amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, spray life threatening chemicals upon our food sources and wipe out more species every year? What if we make large swaths of the planet uninhabitable? What if water dries to a trickle in places with once abundant flow? What if we kill all the bees and butterflies? What if GMO food requiring only hand-pollination becomes the norm? What if all the flowers die? Like so many, I have a deep love, fascination and connection to the natural world and I am haunted by this potential.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1424038239209-L5T2LRTRASQWV20G0XC0/image-asset.jpeg blog - keeper of the last garden. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1424038264781-YRCXPWLXV4YGJQESSSF7/image-asset.jpeg blog - keeper of the last garden. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1424038296566-WO83DAOMIFFFN21MJE1Z/image-asset.jpeg blog - keeper of the last garden.   Recently, I began a small series of cages, protective armor, shields,enclosures meant to protect that which lies inside their confines. This sculpture is entitled Keeper of the Last Garden and is an examination of how we might proceed to protect the flowers of a garden that no longer grows anew. If only the vestiges of past blooms remain, crumbling, brown, shriveled, how might we protect these once wonders? Will we build corrals for them to ward off further destruction? How will we remember the possible beauty of what was? Is there a way to highlight the stunning hues of a flower in her fullness of life when her vibrant spirit has flown? Using salvaged wood from an urban park and island driftwood, a dried peony from last summer and my grandmother's needlepoint yarn, I am attempting to preserve and recreate the beauty of this no longer vital flower. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/2/10/love-is-in-the-air monthly 0.5 2015-02-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587214490-FKNXBK1O2W3NXB5AE5JY/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. each rose in this basket, from Harry & Clara, 1950 . https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587260316-4C4MN85E9CDBKPLBWZP1/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. a love collection. Sometimes a girl has got to make Valentine's. I remember as a kid my mother talking about Hallmark Holiday's and how we should not buy into the hype. There is no reason to celebrate something that you should perhaps revere and celebrate everyday on a designated day by going out and supporting the corporate world by purchasing meaningless garbage. And I agree, oh do I ever agree that there is no point in going out and purchasing mass produced, poor quality stuff just because it is a day to give stuff. I am not one for expecting roses or chocolates or manufactured anything, but as much as I am more than happy not to receive anything I do get quite a thrill out of giving things. And, despite my mother's stance on Hallmark Holidays, I do remember my Dad bringing home funny cards, fuzzy stickers and purple socks with red puffy paint sparkly hearts on the ankle when I was a kid, and well, they were from a store called P.S. I Love You and all of that was pretty cool. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587302847-AAQO7H3XGK4FMS9WDWQG/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. because we all need some Happy Love. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587347345-BUP4ET2CSG3LL9WBJ6T0/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. L is for love. So as regards this holiday, my heart has been tugged in many directions. At times I've cared about it and other times it has passed unnoticed. I remember one year going to see Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues on Valentine's Day and finding it a profound moment to reflect on women and our bodies and how despite the abuse so many women have suffered that we should fiercely love our bodies such that we may love ourselves and find sanctuary within when the world doesn't always offer the necessary love and support. There was another year that I was taken out to dinner at Chez Panisse, and, well, suffice to say I got all dressed up and had a delightful meal the likes of which my lips had never before or since tasted. Oh oh oh and another favorite Valentine's Day excursion was going to see Aya De Leon's one woman Valentine's show focused on self-love, not only sheer genius, but I seem to remember some robust deep in the heart laughs. Yes, there have been eventful Valentine's days. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587324017-7NKQMWXRC999RLU27CQM/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. a hearts' tale, in spines. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587383977-G97OH1B796OUXBTQ2XIP/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. a nursery's love parade. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587409871-UN7BDFGWJDO5JH51X3TT/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587443395-W0OUGFK4K93EZGLTQH2W/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. a pin head holds a bouquet. Surely the most notable of these was in 2008 when my daughter Moxie was born. See, she was due on February 14th,and I went into labor at 1 a.m. on that day, but deep in my heart I didn't want her to have to share a birthday with a holiday. My birthday is often on Thanksgiving and it is a mixed blessing, a great opportunity to be together with family, but also it is a rare year that it gets celebrated as an independent event. Really, that's fine, but to have a day that isn't mixed up or competing for attention allows for more possibility. Also, we had been out to dinner at an Italian restaurant shortly before I went into labor and our server said that if M was in fact born on Valentine's Day she should be called Valentina and my beloved husband went with it. Through much of my twenty-four hour labor, mainly the final hour in the birthing tub (in the room that is now my daughters' bedroom), he talked shop about how we were going to call her Moxie Valentina Amore Zises. Yup, he thought it was a hoot, and it was, at least it kept other's amused and allowed me a moment's humor reprieve from the intensity of crowning and the ring of fire. But I held out and didn't start pushing until a little after midnight on the 15th, and so this sweet little girl slipped into our watery world at 12:27 a.m. on the 15th and became Moxie Leil instead of Valentina. That was a Valentine's Day to remember, one when my little love child was swimming toward the outside world and I was brimming with love and so was the rest of the world. Was it all the love in the air that encouraged her to slip sleeping into this world? Perhaps. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587574188-YO3F97FLM202MBWYVU0L/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. love watches over you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587647411-QPOTJ9ODI39UAF6VWD6O/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1423587241733-AA7FTMTT541IY0BMMZK2/image-asset.jpeg blog - love is in the air. feathery love conserves energy. But it was last year that I got serious about sharing the love. A few days before Valentine's Day last year a beloved friend told me about an artist friend of hers who had hosted a Valentine's making party. This friend of a friend had provided all the supplies and they weren't your average doilies and sparkly hearts. Oh no, it was bits and pieces of red and pink and white and lace and ribbons that she had collected over time. There were deposit slips from the bank and bubble wrap and lightbulb packaging and remnants of condolence letters from estate sales. It all sounded amazing to my collector's heart and I ran home and stayed up into the wee hours making garlands and stitchy hearts on cardboard. Then secretly and anonymously delivered them to friends' houses before they woke on that day of love. And so, it was pure delight when this year I received an invite in my inbox to attend a Valentine's making extravaganza hosted by this lovely artist at a local brewery. My girls and I spread out on the floor in the brew room with so many inspiring bits and pieces I couldn't possibly keep up with my spinning head and moving fingers. Who knew I like to collage so much?! And here, these are the results. I must selfishly say that I am a bit smitten with these little works and ho hum, well I'd love to keep them hanging on our wall here at home, but me thinks they must be distributed into the world...to spread the love. Would you like to receive a little love on this sweet day? So I'm curious, I must admit, to hear a little about your take on this holiday. Can you take it or leave it? Do you have traditions you have created? Do you send your love off in envelopes sealed with a kiss? Pray tell, I'm eager to hear. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/1/22/winter-wonderland-window monthly 0.5 2015-01-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421952874677-PCC8NTJMVC2L7KHUBQ16/dragonfly+window+display.jpg blog - winter wonderland window. Dragonfly Boutique, 1309 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, Il 60201 https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/11/14/revitalization monthly 0.5 2015-01-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415987356943-PI9SI3HOSX46D1J2N7ID/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415987382050-A2RGRJ0HNF0QRWNHSLY4/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   Here's my dirty little secret, I love clothing. I love getting dressed in the morning. I love costumes and how we construct ourselves for our own pleasure and possibly the perception of others. Last Autumn I heard an interview with the editors of a book called Women in Clothes. The interview thrilled and astounded me, it got me thinking, oh it inspired. The book is more or less a conversation among women on the subject of clothing, how and why we dress and how these choices define and shape who we are in the world. At the core of the book is a survey that 639 women completed asking them to explain their dressing philosophy and habits. Some of the questions: Can you say a bit about how your mother's body and style has been passed down to you, or not? Was there a point in your life when your style changed dramatically? What happened? What are some things you admire about how other women present themselves? When do you feel at your most attractive? The interview really got me thinking. Are there rules that I abide by when I get dressed in the morning? Who or what am I attempting to conjure when I don my garb? Do we as women dress for comfort? Oooo how do we define comfort? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421355657520-S9DQ3852RF2SGUDPBKTD/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   This morning when I walked my girls to school we passed gaggles of middle school girls and all but a very few had on black leggings or tight jeans and Ugg boots or boots with fur topped cuffs. There was the one goth girl dressed in black tights and a whispery black skirt and the girl in what looked like a hand-me-down trench coat and rain boots that couldn't have offered much warmth on this winter's day, but really and truly all the others were dressed alike from the confident ebullient pretty girls to the awkward acne struck girl who shuffled along with her head down. The majority of the girls, in their self inflicted uniform, were dressed for comfort seemingly on a fabric meets skin level, but also on a deeply social level that maybe conveys status or conformity. The goth girl, she perhaps has rejected the herd mentality, rejected the collective we and is finding herself through unique clothing choices, and the girl in rain boots, I suspect she possibly might not have had the luxury of options, the resources to conform whether she wanted to or not. And so this question of dressing for comfort becomes expansive. Comfort with the social norms of disposable fast-fashion trends? Comfort with the extravagance of having options of what to wear based on your given mood? Comfort of mobility and sensuous fabrics? Comfort with the messages you convey with any item you choose to wear? Strangely enough, prior to hearing the above mentioned interview, I don't think I realized how much of my psyche might be bound up in the act of dressing. That each question of the survey used to start this conversation could inspire a thin volume of explanation from me defies logic. It's not like I spend hours contemplating what to wear... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421951968203-2300RSLUXG6C6OUJ02X6/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   All of this being said, I dress my best for the everyday. Dressing up for a special occasion, happy or sad, always puts me in a quandary. Somedays I dress up, but when I have to dress up I almost always feel awkward, uncomfortable or out of place, like my "style" isn't made for occasions other than the every day. I love the love worn, the comfortable, the tried and true. My closet overfloweth and yet I continually reach for that same black cardigan. And so in the repeated wearing of the favorite bits or the fragile bones, threads break, buttons pop, knees fray, bottoms tear, moths eat and holes form. The love worn becomes unwearable, although I can often be found wearing something long after it's gone to shreds. For many of us accustom to our culture of disposal, tossing a favorite piece of clothing after it has busted-up is a sad act, but one of non-attachment that we have come to know far too well given that the majority of clothing today is poorly made. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415987415821-PDLZSKLKYNPX0WF8EOIK/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   Over time I allowed all those love worn pieces to pile up in a corner of my studio and when the pile became to daunting I shoved the whole lot of it in the attic, lost but not forgotten. Every now and then I remembered a favorite item lost to the abyss of the mending pile and wished for it, but never quite took the time to sit down with needle and thread to repair the poor garment. Sure I'd done a quick fix with the sewing machine or put a button back on a child's coat, but really taking the time to re-inspire a garment with mending was a passing thought rather than an intentional act. Oh I remember the winter I sat on the couch patching a pile of SmartWool socks that had worn through at the toe or heel, and I still wear those socks, patched and hole-less...and then there are the ones with holes that I continue to wear, but the commitment to repair has come and gone, it has wavered. I think it is high time for a re-commitment to all the clothes that have served me well and made me so much myself, to take a vow of repair, of revitalization. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421355686894-WOO1CGTMMPHA9Q53KUWH/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   If you were a favorite item, regardless of quality, if I have worn you through, I owe it to the plants that were grown and harvested to make you, to the workers that stitched, the designers that conceived to take the time to mend what others might cast off. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421952067066-974S01C20MVU5A3OQOWN/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   When I "mend" flowers on a page I am attempting to bring the essence of what they were back, but also to inspire a slightly new angle of engagement, a conversation between stitch and petal that wasn't there before, a new level of reflection. When we love so fiercely that we destroy, that is when the work begins. Well, it's hard for me not to wear my favorite clothing hard, I can't tell you how many times I have split the seat of my pants, but perhaps there is something in the act of taking the time to examine that split, to taking the time to lovingly repair it that will teach me about the way that I move and why it is that that split occurs repeatedly in different pairs of pants, to bring a new level of awareness. With this renewed commitment to clothing of the past, I vow to at least attempt repair to those items that once were favorites and to the ones that weren't favorites, maybe with repair I can make them more lovable. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415987436406-CF331STNBSB2NUUANFPD/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization.   To repair any given item is a commitment that requires the gift of time, since time is not always abundant for such tasks I am attempting to carry mending with me wherever I go. Then when the opportunity arises I can whip out these frail bits of fabric and stitch out in the world. It is the finding of time in between where mending will happen. These mendings won't be perfect. They will contain rough asymmetrical stitches, some haphazard and in different directions, some stitches layered on top of others, a little crude perhaps. Despite the rough shod stitches, new life will be breathed into old garments and new opportunity to wear something that has a storied past. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421355713209-SHCJF29G6651481J60BG/image-asset.jpeg blog - revitalization. Alabama Chanin skirt project. Amidst all this mending I am also totting around an Alabama Chanin skirt project in my bag, one that I can hopefully wear the heck out of and is being mended forward, stitched with love, uber enforced, such that it won't require more stitches down the road, and if and when it does, well it will have proven to be a favorite and worth the work. Do you have many items in your wardrobe that you have loved and torn or lost the love for? Perhaps they just need a little mending. Perhaps you'll take up your needle and thread and darn those cloth wounds into a new bit of delight to brighten your day. Let's wear our mendings as a badge of honor, an act of loving, a commitment to the past and belief in the future, token and small as it might be. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2015/1/14/a-few-flowers-to-brighten-your-day monthly 0.5 2015-01-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421258461664-51EK50YKPGM2JEVAX74B/image-asset.jpeg blog - a few flowers to brighten your day. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421258491269-2G9WCLKRKLE0ID4VX6CB/image-asset.jpeg blog - a few flowers to brighten your day.   Looking outside my window the world is huddled under a blanket of white powder. The sort that freezes your bones and after making snow angels and fairy igloos for hours you want to retreat from, at least for a little, to warm your fingers and toes. During a winter wonderland induced hibernation I have spent some time plotting for next summer's backyard flower farm. Yes, I know, or suspect, it will not be a full scale flower farm, but rather a step in the direction of expanded cultivation. My plan is to till more of our lawn into beds and intersperse flowers between the fruits and veggies already under cultivation. I'd also like to fill many of the little spaces between and amongst other plantings with FLOWERS! And maybe someday, perhaps not this year, I'll dream up a flower maze for our front yard, one that will thrill birds, bees, butterflies and neighbors alike. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421258515493-WVKJY13WVEEFB8UFLB7B/image-asset.jpeg blog - a few flowers to brighten your day.   Oh did I mention bees?! I have dreamed of keeping bees for, well let's say in honest the past four or five years, but probably long before that the itch began. This being said I don't like being stung and I fear swarms. I have done lots and lots and lots of reading about bees and talked to many a beekeeper. From all of this I've concluded that Top-Bar or Warre style hives are the route for me. Perhaps these too will come to be, all the better to pollinate our neighborhood. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421258544011-WMNW425I489BE9UR10CU/image-asset.jpeg blog - a few flowers to brighten your day.   So what say you, will I actually do with all these flowers? First and foremost I'm hoping to expand the local habitat for the birds, the bees and the butterflies. In this urban-ish neighborhood we aren't exactly festooned with eating opportunites for these creatures of our biosphere. Concrete doesn't serve well as sustenance. So, I'm intending to sustainably and organically cultivate flowers in an urban-ish environment that will attract insects and avian creatures alike. Then I hope to harvest blooms for enchanted flower portraits, more flower mendings, and experimentation with suspending flowers in sap resin on a small, medium and large scale. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1421258565870-KV4LVXPP0VL2DBFVXMOR/image-asset.jpeg blog - a few flowers to brighten your day.   Yes, these are my dreams as I walk stealthily through fresh fallen snow and brave our lake front Tundra. I am embracing winter in all her beauty, but hold a little longing in my heart for the bounty of the growing season. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/10/28/7ninkqa6xofbvmll6zzp21tsfuqsmi monthly 0.5 2015-01-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520129014-WASWWPI2ZJWTAGQITTTD/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520209096-MUCZVCWWC525RSW4JVXP/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea?   Oh goodness me, I've been meaning to invite you in for quite some time. I wanted to show you around and share a glimpse into this little space I've carved out for myself. Way back in October our town hosted a Saturday afternoon Open Studio where I was one of the stops on the trail. During that day a hundred or so folks stopped by for a gander and a frolic. It was delightful to share my work and my space. It also provided me with a lovely opportunity to clean out and re-organize my studio.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520765201-I3EZZO5YLUA7R78LX668/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520363919-ZPNVA5NIKW623WVJRRML/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520545821-ECA8I9AQN7W7JT8EKBKL/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520652368-3T5SMB3HL4KNIP6EAU3P/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520680748-SQBKGNM4IUF5JSDQM0FS/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520838963-ELNWFVIKB55UN91NJKBA/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea?   During the open house I showcased Flight Plan, a constructed environment intended to invoke a sense of chance encounter, the potential of love and attraction, the magic of winter exploration and the possibilities of flight, in our living room. I wasn't able to gather all of the pieces that are apart of the installation into one space, but it was enough to enchant and inspire several of the souls who passed through. Someday, I'm not sure when, I'm not sure where, I hope to share the piece in it's entirety. I'll let you know when that day comes. Until then I'm going to do my best to share smaller and individual pieces in more public places than my home. Perhaps that is my goal for 2015. Show more work. So this is my first step in that direction, sharing this space with you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521011226-29X1V83B4R8UTBXELVZK/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521048482-0BJU215O5LWRUIBV8QAE/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521124789-KF6UFW2TKSKW9BOYULX5/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521229536-KPMP76F15PD5WXJ6LXSI/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521445339-DDAE41RJXE6CN0422021/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521510517-ZYCLW73N8QMFI9G6JVAF/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea?   Just a note that many of the spaces in my home don't let in enough natural light for beautiful picture making, but hopefully this gives a little bit of a sense of the world where I gather and hone and imagine and make. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520720261-3A32CZU8ZG196ROG8O0P/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414520396296-U937SQ4IDHTE8CVAA9N5/image-asset.jpeg blog - come in. please wander. take your time. would you like a cup of tea?   Thank you for wandering through. Come by again sometime. Maybe next time we can sit and stitch together. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/12/1/seeing-red monthly 0.5 2014-12-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446430164-NS5JFBVNZ4WT4EZW5QGG/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446480710-4EPM8IVHQC1QP09EP0OB/image-asset.jpeg blog - red.   Our natural environment has been put to bed for the season of hibernation. Trees have quietly slipped off their summer cloaks and eased themselves into an introverted state. Indications of dormancy and slumber are everywhere around us. But wait, still, there is the crocus of color in Autumn tumbling toward Winter. This color hollering that she, and thus we, are still very much here and alive, is brilliant red. She is everywhere painting our streets, wrapping our bodies, drawing our attention, captivating our hearts, bright as our blood. And so when the root children and flowers are under Jack Frost's spell we can still hunt and gather luminous bits that abound in our constructed environment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417720791396-373VYNNMVG2UWBDNHFFO/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446528200-JDXWCK9GW6W4VHR41BSA/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446594194-YMP4CES8N13UNUY4SQXT/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446653931-J40JCRO3J9D2HDHG049P/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446689460-8OTVXNULYL11F37239KF/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446737402-P5XNVNO74GTWAAHXXEYP/image-asset.jpeg blog - red. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1417446790302-5MPC9FIVSP0XPWLC8O1X/image-asset.jpeg blog - red.   This hunt for color and colors will be my winter balm. Will you join me in chronicling color in these frosty months? https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/11/19/bee-balm-herringbone-hit-the-road monthly 0.5 2014-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1416422857724-5DVE30AXFKBS921M798O/image-asset.jpeg blog - bee balm & herringbone hit the road. Bee Balm & Herringbone. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/10/28/autumn-apple-adventures monthly 0.5 2014-11-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523055446-B94RMMVCZA2NMORICCVB/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523095750-6DV9HKKZATHZXVSOL6LA/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   When you live in the city sometimes it feels essential to escape. Being a girl who has roamed far and wide I often find the Midwest a little disheartening. There isn't the beauty of mountains and valleys, canyons and riverbeds, the quaintness of New England or the proximity of my beloved family and friends. But there are large swaths of open land dotted with beautiful tumble down barns, there are rolling hills planted with endless acres of crops, a fruit basket of grapes and apples and berries so beautiful in its abundance. There are unglaciated regions like the southwest of Wisconsin with its caves and springs and undulating land. Outside the city and away from the coasts of our country the pace of time slows, the life choices and values shift and community seems to strengthen. Much of this community, in what I've seen of the Midwest, is religious and conservative in a way that I am not, in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable and a bit reactive. But there are pockets that are not and those are the pockets I search for, while also, sometimes, stepping outside of my own comfort zone and reaching across the differences I am resistant to, to find a space of common ground. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523119578-38VU8UY1PG0DSY5FQ6WW/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523155869-Q8WJCTGJHTTPR9GW9KG9/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   Last year as winter lifted her shroud I took my girls on a day long adventure to a magical place that also happened to be an innovative puppet theater and small organic farm about 2 hours from home. On our journey out to the farm my girls gazed out the window and my older daughter began musing about what she would do if she lived amidst such beauty and open space, what it would be liked to be unleashed, to be free, to wander without reservation, without restraint. And so, although we are city folk for now, and likely evermore, I try to give them a taste of this wandering life every chance I get. We are lucky to have connections to several farms in our region and hold dear the chances to spend time at these oases, to feel connected to the land that feeds and nourishes us on every level. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523213384-DCC8LOM0919YRIBA276H/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523258413-BIONH6VPMNS0B9ZKI8JJ/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1416415406901-TXH60WEL521XSQ7KQMCX/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   To that end we have an ever expanding garden in our backyard so that when we are hungry during the growing season we can go harvest a meal of peas, zuchinni, beets, onions, tomatoes, green beans, various leafy greens, raspberries, apples ( a few), cherries (some), asparagus, rhubarb, herbs and other miscellaneous nourishment. Throughout the season of bounty we do our best to put up food for the winter. We jam, we pickle, we can, we freeze and now with snow on the ground we are digging into the stores. Before the snow fell we made a harvest pilgrimage to an organic apple orchard where we gathered bushels of apples that were later sauced, buttered and massaged with butter, cinnamon and raisins and baked. To have this opportunity to connect with our food system is a privilige and honor. This abundance and quality is rare in the world where our food production and consumption is increasingly industrialized and processed denaturing the very thing that gives us life. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523283599-MESKFOJ5MVBZFL5EDGS1/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523415997-72AONTC2K8N8ZUJM0Y2D/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   It seems that the more we develop as a world, build walls around ourselves and hide in the sanctuary of technology, the more we loose ourselves. We immerse our very being in a world of action and happening of constant change and possibility, of having and wanting and needing. And as we stick our head in this proverbial sand, we loose sight of what is most important: the air, the land, the eco-systems that support us, maintain the very possibility of our existence on this planet at all. We are all subject to this immersion in the world we have created. It is hard to stop and step outside the now to look at the bigger picture and think about how we can act in this world, as individuals, to create positive change for all. It is also easy to be consumed and paralyzed by the devastation we have reaped upon our planet, think carbon footprints, extreme weather events, climate change that may well put humanity's existence to sleep. So then, how do we agree to make large scale change to preserve ourselves as a race? Can we step outside of our individual everyday and the whir of information innundating us to connect with the notion that we may well develop ourselves into extinction, destroying our food system, our environment because we are to busy to deal with the consequences of our actions. Is there a common ground where the climate change deniers and believers meet? Where hard science is understood and concrete agreements made and abided by, convenience and capitalism exchanged for a worldly good, investing in the potential for future generations to thrive. I don't know if this is possible. I'd like to think that the CEO's of companies extracting fossil fuels from the earth might want to believe in a future where enough natural resources, like water, still exist for us to be able to feed future generations, but I'm not sure their current bottom line cares to see beyond this year's earnings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523312151-L9UWCBQF8GJTD3MK0RBJ/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523022913-V4OD1P9DKERW4KPVG6N2/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523354608-HO3T3M6EQUEMPVMBSZRF/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   During an Autumn visit to Tryon Farm, a sustainable collective farm community in Indiana, my six year old daughter and her best friend were talking about their American Girl dolls (a brand that had its heart in the right place when it began, but now just seems to promote needless consumption to little girls) and homemade computers and cellphones. Yes, homemade, out of cardboard with detailed hand drawings of screens and keyboards, a longing for access to technology that has inundated and permeated every ounce of our culture. And their conversation was killing me, listening to this prattle about stuff, longing to have more junk to clutter up their lives, craving computers and phones because this is what they see around them. They see other kids with mountains of toys, they see adults always on computers or people picking up their phones constantly to communicate or check on this or that. They want to be a part of the action too. Even though they are not kids with an excessive glut of belongings, even though they deeply value and cultivate intimate relationships with dolls they have spun identities and adventures for, even though they were innovative enough to make their own versions of what adults have and pretend to use said things, I needed the conversation to shift deeply and so we had to stop, to inhale into our surroundings, to be quiet, to listen and then sink deeply into our experience of the there and then, without straying back into our world beyond that moment. I needed all of us to have the chance to be present where we were at that very moment because it is such a unique and rare opportunity when you live in the rhythm of the urban globalized world to connect to nature. And so I enforced a rule, just for those two hours while we walked, that they had to open their eyes to where they were, that they were not allowed to talk about any brand or thing that they wanted, that they were not allowed to talk about phones or computers, but instead see what was around them, explore their immediate surroundings, gather leaves, find something to collect, ignite a little of the magic that is in the dirt at our feet. The rest of the walk, was, well, pretty darn fabulous. There was silence and wonder and curiosity and collecting of acorns and little berries and discussions of building things and awe at nests we saw, and a deep listening to the sounds of animal rustles and tumult in the thicket. It was magic that planted a seed of reminder, planted a memory to come back to, a space of understanding that this is the land we come from and man oh man do we want it to be here for us, to feed us when we are hungry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523526463-TH4J9O1FN5CHQPTEE2J2/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523469760-E7HCXKXZBT093WCQ7V9E/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1416415481821-X8E9T8YC917YZGJWHOZO/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   Three weeks after this walk my older daughter turned to me and said, "Oh Mama, I loved that walk..." and proceeded to list off the vivid memories of things she touched and saw that day, the deep sense of being held in the arms of the forrest and the prairie. So I'm wondering if we might all find a crazy earth mama to yell at us, to force quit and reboot, just long enough so that we might salvage what is most important and essential to our existence, an understanding that the earth matters not just because we want to wander barefoot in the woods or pick apples and make sauce, but so that sea levels don't rise and sweep away our coasts, draught doesn't leave us thirsty withered and without food, epic weather events don't destroy our homes and otherwise make them uninhabitable and antibiotic resistant disease doesn't wipe out large segments of our population. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523586203-L28YBYYZKK8F4S7LOQ8N/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523662655-EA99L78EPIX79EHEIIAC/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414523615263-JMMCHWYENLRSXFM4CSE6/image-asset.jpeg blog - autumn adventures.   I'm not exactly sure what any of this looks like, this crazy earth mama yelling at the world, but I'm hoping we'll listen to her just long enough for all of us driving the train of environmental destruction to pause and invest in radically decreasing our carbon emissions. Is it still possible for humanity to find the voice of childhood whispering in it's ear? Can we force ourselves to stop what we are chattering about, take a deep breath and change direction. It will make all of us in the developed world uncomfortable, I'm sure. There are things we will have to give up, I don't know what they are, but in so doing we will gain the possibility of life and a future beyond ourselves. We might even gain common ground. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/11/14/mending monthly 0.5 2014-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986188265-RZM4PINHWR3D5HQXGTKB/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986223341-75K7KE6E13X9KOB636GQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead.   It is easy this time of year to slip into meditations on death and dying. It is autumn and leaves cover the ground, a few trees still cling to their leaves but whips of wind will strip them bare in a few short days. The gardens have been put to bed and the last of our kale was harvested for breakfast this morning. We are surrounded by signs of what no longer is, of life lost. This is the rhythm of seasons, of change, but as I get older I seem to fear this change, this loss of life, a little more each year. I have spent years living in places where the variation in temperature does not swing it's pendulum as extremely as it does here. To be honest though, at least then, I craved winter. I craved the hibernation that never came. But as we stand on the doorstep of winter's silences, life laid dormant, I am holding, fists clenched, at least for the next few weeks as I adjust to the internal drive to be outside and the psychological resistance to bone chilling cold, on to the vibrant memory of the glory days of Spring, Summer and Fall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986261530-FPMQE54AOE7XQG1M5NRC/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986284739-UG2T668Z772LJZALYTW7/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead.   Last summer I spent some amount of time culling flowers from the earth and pressing them between pages of absorbent paper and cardboard lashed together with cotton straps. As of this week the last of the flowers in our garden have given way to crumpled vestiges of their former selves. It was the Black-Eyed Susan's and the flowers of bolted Parsley that held out the longest, but now they hang slack leafed and wilted, waiting their turn to return to the soil below. I have to continually remind myself that flowers, by their very nature, bloom so that they may reproduce. Their dying is also an act of re-seeding. Dried flowers stand sentinel on their stalks as the wind picks up their seeds and scatters them near and far to grow anew. Surrounded by these images of life snuffed out, waiting for new growth and having spent a little too much time recently reading depressing articles on climate change, I find myself compelled to find a way to hold on to the beauty that was last season. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986318385-X8RVBLR17MK15BBZTJWQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986362616-GQ4EFP72FFC3VEKNF8QR/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead.   I have slipped the straps off of my flower press and sorted through the flowers found in fields, purchased at the farmer's market and grown in my own back yard. There are many. Some have held fast to their colors, others have faded. Some are hearty and their petals strong, while others crumple at my touch. I know the names of many, but others are strange beauties that intrigue me and I long to know better. Thus begins a conversation whispered between brittle leaves and lingering needles. I stare at these fragile lives quieted by my press and the passage of time. They are not as vibrant as they were a few short months ago when they stood in full feather on their stalks en plein air, but they are here before me. Their shape has changed, but they still speak volumes in color and contour. I have meditated on their petals and leaves, pistils and stamen and found stories echoing loudly, longing to be told. In response to these echoes I gathered needles and yarn, paper and glue and set to stitching conversations on to the page reflecting color and configuration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986388094-P1047SOBDKBIAPKGXP9C/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1415986406777-EB21ITCGODVMS8RXKLNQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - conversations with the dead.   These are the results and I am a bit excited about them. Sure they don't bring the actual flower back to life, but maybe they give it some new life or harness the essence of what it once was. I have a stack of flowers waiting to tell their stories and listening to their echoes is sure to help me through these winter months. I guess it's one way of dealing with the winter blues. That, and dreaming about the seeds to be planted in the Spring. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/10/28/as-seen-grand-rapids-mi monthly 0.5 2014-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521935931-IK3NIV8DX1O1623RHUWW/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522184860-7J2SGO4EDMILT8HMOEF7/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   There are few things I love more than to wander at a moderate pace with no other distractions in my mind than the world immediately around me. Unleash me on a city without family at my heels and I can go for days. I need little sustenance but the stories spun from the landscape consumed step-by-step down a city street. In an unfamiliar place there is chance and opportunity around every corner. I hunger to find the unknown and unexpected in unfamiliar territory. My life, at this moment in time, has a pretty consistent rhythm and balance of family and food and movement and studio time, but sometimes everything gets turned on its head and we unfold into the opportunity of what is beyond the great familiar. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522167584-F4UIGNJFVKLBRS284WDB/capturing+facades.jpg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   I long to invite adventure into our lives and so I tend to spend spare moments conjuring how we might explore the world. Oh that we were one of those families who stripped life to the bare essentials and traveled the world on a shoestring doing service projects in various locales, finding ways to connect with a culture and unpeel the mystery that lies before us. But it seems, for a mountain of reasons, that is not us, at least not now. For the moment I am the one who longs to discover the tangible world beyond my doorstep and beyond beyond my doorstep. My girls are game for adventures and willingly oblige when I announce that we are setting out on a train to St. Louis or to an orchard in Michigan or an isolated spot far far away. But their stamina for long term adventure is limited. The familiarity of home, the rhythm of the known is reassuring to their little hearts. My husband too finds great comfort in the stability of home. There is infinite possibility in our home when we all retreat into our little worlds. We imagine and create and swim into our interior unknowns. And then there is so much exploring in the immediate vicinity, people to know, places to absorb, things to learn and grow into, chances to practice and practice again a skill, opportunities to connect with wounds that are not our own, to be harrowed by them and to offer support on a long and painful road. The great wide world can be too much sometimes, too much intensity, too much possibility, too much stimulation. And so with an eye to keeping my crew in harmony, extreme upheaval will have to wait.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522060861-GM8A00SOK01ZYUSO0FLO/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521986094-0R0KPTG96451XN1A8W2H/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   In the interim my curiosity can be sated by a small town just beyond the horizon. I am infinitely intrigued by that which I do not know, the place where I have not been, the people I have not said hello to. There are boundless opportunities in the small towns and national parks in our own country to learn, see or experience something new. I've lived in this country for almost 40 years and how much of it have I deeply explored? Not so very much. I have made home on the East and West Coast, in the South and Midwest, hiked and camped in the Southwest, driven cross-country, but I still feel the pull of all its peculiar nooks and crannies to dive deeper, to revel more fully in its vast expanses. Flying cross-country on a clear day is a birds eye view into the infinite unknown, into the creeks and valleys and farmlands and forests. I long to be unleashed upon this landscape. To journey deep into this countryside with a camera, a change of clothes, a water bottle and some snacks. Imagine. Imagine drinking up the grit and the beauty of each ounce of city block, each curve of path, each bend in the river. And so when my beloved decided to run his fourth marathon, I thought hmmm, where shall we explore? What town can I wander through and possibly find something old, something new, some source of sustenance in?   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522282746-KNFCPHC2HIT1I7UJ1HJZ/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   And so we landed in Grand Rapids, MI. It was a three hours drive from here to there through the industrial burn out of Gary, IN and on into the rolling beauty of Michigan's abundant fruit basket. As we approached the city I wondered when the slowly increasing density of outer suburbs would begin, but it was almost as if we emerged from the verdant farmland right into the city. A place of wide streets, because here in the Midwest we are less confined by our geography, space opens her arms wide to urban planners and says lay down your streets, we welcome the broadness of your back. And in 1831 when the 72 acres that make up the configuration of downtown Grand Rapids was purchased, that space became defined and began to be constructed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522486534-HMJL1TY1ZXUBLS45RCP5/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522323227-97CGMQ7N10GIWVNXXXQ6/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   Today Grand Rapids is a fascinating little oasis of art and culture amidst agriculture. There is a rich history of furniture design and production, several art museums and galleries, a thriving farmers market culture, money for the most incredible YMCA in the country, I'm sure of it, a number of universities, sweet places to eat, what looks like a cutting edge children's hospital and oh so much more. Upon our arrival I was chomping at the bit to catch a few hours of exploring before the fleeting light left us in darkness and in need of rest. My family, not so much. I promised samples of Loves Ice Cream or the Grocer's Daughter Chocolate, playing in parks and adventures in museums, but what my girls really wanted to do, I mean really Really really wanted to do was draw for a few hours, swim in the pool, explore the lobby of the hotel in all its splendid grandeur and eat take out sushi, so rather than struggle, coerce, cajole I let it be. They felt like they had just arrived at a little magical hub, a sort of Eloise meets some unknown swimming adventure story. They wanted to settle into this place, to draw what they thought its visitors of yesteryear might have looked like, to find a space of sanctuary in their momentary home. And so my illogical bribery with sugar lost an unnecessary battle and I took up the mantle of the loan adventurer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522357792-46CKNNLNK4M2V0PEZE0S/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522398157-AG38LCS461RBO88EE1XK/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522566887-HPT1VZ4XWMOQTM2Q44CO/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522247317-WG3HF0HIDZHA44NTVBSQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   The morning's rain had dried up and the light had begun to shift, sinking back toward the earth. I had a few short hours to get lost, find beauty and return, so I grabbed my camera and made like the wind. And oh my goodness, oh my goodness did I ever loose myself in the enchanting light of autumnal early evening, the bricks and mortar buildings reflecting stories of lives lived, lost and reimagined, the brilliance of innovative small businesses, bits of art left behind from the recently celebrated ArtPrize, the humble beauty of Heritage Hill home to some 1,300 homes once slated for demolition now lovingly restored and inhabited by those who are contended to be surrounded by walls that echo stories of once upon a time before. It was a glorious two and a half hours that left me with an itch to return. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522432233-VLEZ6GA4ZLOE8RBYGXHK/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   As a city it seemed to hold infinite possibility. There was space and opportunity for one to start something and be unique, to possibly offer something that others wanted to be a part of and have it take off. Maybe I'm being romantic and idyllic and provincial, but having lived in great urban centers for most all of my life there is something intriguing about these smaller clusters of inhabitants. Sometimes I feel lost in the hub-bub of the big city, like there are so many of us that nobody is quite so distinct and that to not be washed over you really have to stand up and shout. I think I'm not the best shouter. But, I have been to a few smaller places that are rich with reflections that inspire me, where perhaps there isn't the buzz of New York City, but there is the community and affordability and commitment to one's practice to allow for the chance to thrive. Viroqua, WI embodies this ideal for me. A small town of 4,000 with a huge organic co-op and thriving community of makers and artists. People are living rich dynamic lives with a certitude of space and quiet and inspired interested people who want to connect and adventure together, to share in each other's successes and failures. But I digress, let me get back on track here. Yes, during our sojourn in Grand Rapids I had a strong sense of the potential to be a big fish in a small pond. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522764782-I6ZKB7C2FG11ZCNJWBLZ/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522626973-F6JRWLBIP2BHX5L5IQA5/through+the+fence.jpg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522802016-JQI9P9E6EFF5TQ4A982K/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   This sense was fed by the absolute gems that I encountered while wandering. That they existed in this place I knew nothing about, that they were supported and thriving made me feel a sense of hope and probability. I'll just share two and then be on my way. The Downtown Market: This LEED certified building houses a number of independent local foods vendors making delicious things, beautiful community spaces, several rooftop greenhouses, a kids demonstration kitchen, and a number of classes and opportunities to commune. It is geothermal to boot. It all began as the idea of a few determined and devoted community members with a vision. The other spot I almost stumbled past warmed and inspired my heart to no end. I felt as if the vision and sensibility of the place was so deeply kindred as to be eerie. Have Company is a sweet little store front and gallery offering residency opportunities for artists, classes taught by said artists and beautiful hand-crafted goods. The vibe was so rich with a diversity of makings, so delightfully curated and so inviting as to feel like home. That I otherwise knew nothing about them made the encounter unexpectedly blissful. This space seems to have been conjured from a beautiful sense of integrity and community. I love this little tid bit from their website, "The shop is filled with fine art & goods that we truly believe in. Many of the items you will see in the shop are things we use in our own home, made by our friends. We hope that when you take something home from Have Company you are filled with the desire to make." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414522874002-K9OA4BP39O2I2ZK0MOEJ/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1414521899524-8ZCHRRPHHS6N8PF1ZJJL/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: grand rapids, mi.   And so it seems that I found a bit of the familiar in the unfamiliar. That we can journey far afield and find points of connection makes the blazing candle in my heart burn bright and hopeful for all of humanity. Oh and I nearly failed to mention that my beloved ran his fastest marathon yet. Goes to show that we, like good wine, get better with age. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/10/2/summer-fades-to-autumn-but-flowers-still-bloom monthly 0.5 2014-11-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412274904601-YYUUJOO8F0NMDZBRZ1N8/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275168064-DDILK808VJNPPG9RQ29H/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom.   Every ounce of my being knows that it is fall. The light has shifted and fades ever faster. A few nights ago we were sitting around the dinner table and it was dark, fully dark at 7p.m. My heart ached in an expansive cavernous way, a way that feels the tug and fear of hibernation. I hold a deep love for the quiet, contemplative life a brutal winter brings, the focused studio time, the slow braising beans on the stove, nestling up on the couch with my girls, piled under blankets reading stories of great adventure. But I am not ready for it. Thankfully we have some time before snow, before boots, before woolen sweaters must be worn on a trip from bed to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So for now I am savoring the fading blooms of summer, savoring the beauty of golden light, the chilly mornings that turn into warm days and the flurry of festivals and activities happening out of doors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275220390-E6RKQ3UOQLN2GTQGAF8S/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275255961-3KRL6FNMFSOJQZYEUO2O/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom.   Last weekend I had the great pleasure of attending a workshop hosted by the brilliant lovelies at Field & Florist. They seem to have created the perfect business balance. Not only do they farm a half acre field of organic flowers a short drive from Chicago's city limits, but they sell flower shares, much like a CSA where instead of a weekly box of vegetables you get a bouquet of flowers. They also sell wholesale blooms and provide flowers and floral design for events and weddings. These two are a dynamic powerhouse who have cultivated a beautiful aesthetic and unique business model in the flower industry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275309479-RIQKRZQDKG5EV5YP2XUY/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275376814-0U3BNTPUIQ2R7HJMTVKC/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom.   So I have to admit that I was absolutely giddy at the chance to frolic in the fields with them and their know-how. We talked about the nitty-gritty from cover crops to irrigation to pest management to tuber storage in the winter. They told stories of hardship, a snow fall in the spring where they were out with blow dryers warming frozen plants, and running over irrigation lines with the tractor tiller, but every ounce of their joy and love of what they do shined through. They shared their favorite blooms, favorite books and favorite sources for seed. And then we really got to play. Our group of twelve was unleashed on the fields to harvest a bucket of flowers that we would then turn into an arrangement. I have made hundreds of bouquets in my life and of late, spent much time playing with flowers, but arranging in a small wide-mouthed chalice was entirely new to me. I couldn't help but laugh at myself as I tried to contain my slightly disheveled wild nature into this sweet vessel. I had lots of leggy blooms leaping out of the pot and rouge grasses swaying in the breeze, but in the end it seemed to come together as an expression of a vision I didn't know I had. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275435490-7BTOVXOOU9AP5A6T267S/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275582304-3ZW8TUSQ9UZME29URR0O/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom.   After the workshop I collected a few more blooms to bring home. Three days later I pulled them out of the garage and invited a beloved friend over to be my muse. She slipped into the role without hesitation and brought her full spirit to bear. Zinnias, cosmos, hydrangeas and dahlias oh my! I am deeply grateful for such a wonderful friend. The spirit of adventure and possibility she allows sets me free, free to explore what is both before and behind my lens. I am excited to continue down this path of making pictures of women and flowers, women old and young, the clear faces of babes and the lined faces of wizened women who know themselves deeply, each entangled with the botanical realm treading on the edge between this world and the next. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412275847273-D7HZ36IOLEUPOOL7518J/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. untitled, in history. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412276003343-BF51M84LPYNPMNYDXQCY/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. consider the flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1412276056947-JK2QWO20FAPBOU1E9DPE/image-asset.jpeg blog - summer fades to autumn, but flowers still bloom. from the earth. May you find a spot of sun to lay in and a bloom to hold in these drifting fleeting days. Revel in it, behold it, cherish it. Cheerio my loves! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/9/8/flowers-in-the-field monthly 0.5 2014-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410476255992-UJIP43M4RTJEAFPATD5N/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881186330-1V2SB266WESKIDZXSJCV/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field.   On our adventures and meandering this summer I had the great pleasure and opportunity to spend time in the fields of a couple of very special spots where flowers are planted, irrigated, coaxed into beauty and harvested. I am a bit enamored with the romantic notion of a flower farm, the gritty, often painful labor of trial, error and loss, the bone tired, dirt under the fingernails, not particularly lucrative nature of it all, for the love and beauty of flowers. I suspect this is related to some of the deeply enchanted moments I experienced in the fields when the work of the day was done, but bees were buzzing and swallows diving as the sun skulked slowly lower in the sky. I spent three evenings wandering different fields at this hour of day and it was nothing short of nirvana. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881961476-W8FEJ3PBE95B6MAXL2C6/violet+zinnias.jpg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881457008-NI2KJNOBXDAV63I11VGC/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882209696-4ND0QV85PYOH7JE7GS48/paler+pink.jpg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882330885-XOQ5IW7OO8SB0B8V2M73/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881249438-4Z3CIQAN00TICN10RB28/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881135411-CK35C4AVV77NF1APBH5P/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882456447-AFCN1X7HBNOFZG0QYKT1/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882590146-ZBPZZH2M5N31XM24982U/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882711074-KILU2SWI8C71DI0NU2A5/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882864222-37N2SI99CSFUUWNUWHH7/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field.   Such beauty provoked a curiosity as to why it is that we humans are drawn toward cultivation? What are we growing when we push a seed into the earth? Sure as regards food, we are cultivating our own vitality, but is there something deeper especially when it comes to the ornamental? Is it that we reap happiness when we plunge our hands into fertile soil or that the act of growing something from seed is an act of hope, believing in the future? Apparently there are soil bacterium that we absorb through our skin when our hands are in the dirt that spurs the release of seratonin. And, historically in times of war people have cultivated victory gardens as a means of food independence, but there are also stories of flowers being grown on the front lines. Even in times of great distress we need beauty to ease our stress, we need the hope that when we plant a seed we will see it through to bloom. Over the past decade or so there has been a rise in organic farmers cultivating small plots of land. We are in a general state of climate distress and change that is both terrifying and often crop obliterating, yet some, possibly many of us are eager to move back toward the land, to be in sync with the rhythms of the seasons. Hope and happiness seem like vital reasons to invest in our local ecosystems. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880846292-HRR6OC37EUFG3AFH08WW/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880699596-SWFSB3AFXZN6IJZQXQDC/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880730872-Z9K1JDC0BWE4GHEXC3BB/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880761798-0OI997J9OS859RVJKDUG/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880624333-6YQGTKKZDF4XC8PO326C/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880573995-Z8EES99065N8DYC4Y0CU/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880659922-MNDKS5LL0JYH7VR6IKY6/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880512571-OWZY4HU9VRMZFDHFSFNZ/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881041946-TBT43EL5QX48Q0QYGO2A/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883089031-UE7JWA5UV30UQO66HDDG/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882133178-JIWMTNI4CJ9LFU2P8X2Z/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410882492701-XFYZZE4EJJ7GR3WJSDDV/sea+of+purple.jpg blog - flowers in the field. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410881067533-4HXDRX9FAXN06JJZWLCU/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers in the field.   So with this longing toward the hope and happiness of flower cultivation, I have nosed around and glimpsed the work of others with similar aesthetics and dreams. Perhaps their are apprenticeships at World's End or Tea Lane farms in my future, perhaps I can lease an acre or two at Tryon Farm to grow flowers or maybe I should turn our yard into a flower field. There is this journey of growing, making and sharing beauty in the world through the wonder of fresh flowers that deeply moves me, but there is also this dream of using the cultivation and language of flowers to experiment with their preservation and usage beyond arrangement (even though this compels me to the core.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410880445781-IGVBT8M580TXL0HF6KAX/bliss.jpg blog - flowers in the field.   Alexander McQueen used fresh flowers to adorn dresses in his 2007 show, Sarabande, stating, "Things rot. It was all about decay. I used flowers because they die." To pour one self into the complicated making of something with a brief existence is something we humans do over and over again. People commit their lives to making a mark, leaving something behind, but after a time most of us leave nothing behind. Glory fades quickly in a time of abundance. The world echoes with the intangible. There are flower festivals all over the world that showcase this. Extravagant decorations are made, years, months, days are involved in the planning and actualization of a vision that is briefly reveled in and then disappears. I often wonder about what happens to the floats from the rose bowl parade after the festivities are over. I think they are unceremoniously dismantled, slipping back toward the earth. Maybe it is all a metaphor for our own lives. Any which way it is a glorious opportunity to be here amongst the flowers. To behold the abundant beauty, to create, share and celebrate it with all the many creatures on the planet. I am filled with gratitude and an armload of flowers extended your way. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/9/16/flowers-finding-the-order-of-things monthly 0.5 2014-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410884032667-QLZO48HD042OR9WRJNG8/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410884225272-SK4BJPJ0VMI9IPJ67SVQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things.   I remember when I was a child gathering daffodils, Lilly of the Valley, Queen Anne's lace and Black Eyed Susan's at my grandparents' farm as the seasons progressed. We'd make bouquets and fill vases. My grandmother had three distinct areas of her home where she cultivated flowers, her greenhouse which later on was expanded with a potting shed, her front porch which was enclosed in the wintertime and felt very much like a walled english garden or solarium and her rainforest garden. She also had a vegetable garden and various patches of flowers on the farm, but from what I recall she had a few distinct loves: orchids, lilies and hibiscus, each cultivated in a specific location. She tended these loves with great attention. Once when I was a child in the summer I remember laying in the rainforest garden just after the hanging orchids had been watered gazing up from a bed of moss as droplets fell on my face and I stared in wonderment at the tangle of hanging roots. She nurtured these plants with a singular devotion and when they were in bloom there was no greater beauty. I remember her moving through her greenhouse, transplanting and watering, on her knees amongst the zucchini, the delicious succulence of her raspberries. She spoke the language of flowers with an abandon and fidelity that few today herald. The natural world enchanted her from birds, to shells to flowers and she found many ways to dive deep into this enchantment. She was curious about the patterns and habits of our earths ecology, intrigued by the myriad ecosystems in our biosphere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967040176-RGTKYDZ317AQPKBCROOF/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410966950755-NLVFZVO71F3VRV4H4YBO/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967189198-MC3T9N2CYGX8E064Y3ZT/ahhh%21.jpg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967325969-K1HBRACCTXXR0STT1VC9/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things.   Me, I never used to be a flower person per se. I appreciated floral beauty as much as the next person, but I have spent much of my life in cities and moving from home to home. There has been concrete and uncultivated earth in my midst. When my love and I moved into our first home together I remember scattering seeds and hoping something might grow, transplanting dahlias but knowing nothing about feeding and watering. Some how my grandmother's green thumbs alluded me. Buried inside a curiosity about the botanical world churned, but only now is it bubbling to the surface. And I am enchanted, and I am eager, and I am overwhelmed by the world of botanicals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967356180-0II7362EIF5H6YWZXMRX/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967396892-BQVK9HRMYHHC8KFIPU5A/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things.   This world utters softly and screams, it soothes and prickles. Once when I was in school in Mexico I bought a sick friend calla lilies, having no idea of their association with the resurrection of Jesus and common usage as a funeral flower. I was reprimanded for my foolishness and to this day have not purchased calla lillies again. Truth be told they have a more nuanced meaning then I then perceived, but at that time I came to understand that there is a layered language of flowers that harkens back to eons before now that I might want to explore. During the Victorian Era flowers came to express a symbolic language all their own. If you gave somebody a certain flower you need not accompany it with a lengthy letter explaining yourself, the bloom spoke for itself. Today we have reduced that language to roses equalling undying love, poinsettias having something to do with Christmas, and Lilies beauty, but I don't think we have common cultural knowledge of flowers symbolism much beyond this. Floriography is lost on us. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410969042568-3E9S1MMP7EJ2WOA7BA76/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410969013779-0FK4C7IY5BOXO6FXQVS1/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410969267014-OMFLQD6BAZJGQWUHPWEV/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410969116580-JHOD4X8KNFV3JVR76KH9/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things.   Despite this fact, there is indeed an intrigue and appreciation of bring fresh flowers home. We might no longer engage in the exchange of Tussie-Mussies, small bouquets ordered around the meaning of particular flowers and herbs then gifted with intention. But, I think we are still eager to absorb the underlying messages, to be amidst such beauty even if it is a forgotten language. It amazes me the voice each flower has, the feelings they conjure both in their fresh from the earth vibrance and as they decay. I am smitten with the plucking, gathering, arranging, selling and decaying of flowers. There is a symphony out their asking to be ordered, asking to be celebrated, asking to be held. And once we have done so, inhaled deeply the fresh perfume, there is a certain scent of flowers decaying on the kitchen table, a pungence plunging toward putrid that tickles the nostrils and urges us to move our blooms into the compost pile. But of late I have wanted to let them linger, see in their loss of life what shape they might take, how their leaves might furl, blooms might brown and stems may crumble. I hope to move ever closer toward an understanding of this language, to plunge my hands into the earth, to coax and nurture blooms into being. Floriography, you intrigue me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967534829-3O4V3YFHO00PVLC65MJ8/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410967447107-WYNY75VPWCIEK77QK4HY/image-asset.jpeg blog - plucking, gathering, arranging & dying: finding the order of things. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/9/8/in-the-time-of-flowers-arranged monthly 0.5 2014-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883216182-GOMF0ZNQ9H9G1ATWKJ99/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. an owl's devotion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883287567-SE40NAJDREP5BPC56KEQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. for the chickadees. In my last post I waxed on about the flowers at my sister's wedding, but did not actually show the flowers "at the wedding." As we tumble toward fall I am savoring this time of flowers even more, wanting to harness the warmth of the earth, the sun induced stress of plants that urges them to flower, the harvesting and holding on to the beauty of such blossoms for brief moments before they wilt, decay and shift back toward the earth. Rather than go on and on about the divinity of the flowers from the wedding, I'll let them speak for themselves. May I introduce the amazing, glorious, ever enticing beauty of August flowers in the Northeast of the United States: ranunculus, anemone, tea rose, columbine, zinnia, strawflowers and oh so many more. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883324529-2JTIXH10IMKMB2X5F3NA/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. flower delivery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883260835-9I8J06BXMGI2GZGAF1WA/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. bridal bouquet. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883367410-BL2Z2Q76JPDZ3P825SEH/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. four crowns. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410964747118-ZIK7C49OCSPZGGSVP98M/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. arranged. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883404513-K67J8FCJRSC5EE13GMHH/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. flower creature. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883452539-U2A6NNLPDZJ0K3FWHMJ0/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. girls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883703227-CQF5ACIPBHE8IMN93LNC/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. in her hands. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883739078-SQJ1B80YWIGS2S79HWZG/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. usher. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883775831-94T9EEO1IASXSJEE1RN1/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. fully arranged. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883806673-AWKME57RADD0HK4TYEA1/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. toward dusk. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883520571-TP1B0D70EJN8Q4ZNTPXT/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. hung. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1410883501119-FH6MERBYJYO1YHQ2BUS8/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers at the wedding. a reason to celebrate. Happy Day to you! https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/8/30/in-the-time-of-flowers-flowers-after-the-wedding monthly 0.5 2014-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409454123238-4IE8612H1VGJTTYSPL2P/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453176027-1D843NJD63MYBCAC0YRA/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453256003-XI542ZKRM94H3UWYUM4S/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453351349-469AMCPZ0QW89O7695VS/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453128533-LO6KT1TZEJ7URWEGN40O/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding.   It has been almost a month since my little sister got married. She is no longer little, 'tis true, but still very much my beloved sister. She embodies a certain elegance and grace, a clarity of style and distinct vision that she has used to inform her work and her life. Since graduating from college in photo journalism she has shared her perspective on the world through insightful and thoughtful capturing of images. From weddings to farms she harnesses the essence of a moment, the spirit of what is, all with a devotion and eye to finding the fleeting beauty in each instant. And so her wedding was an actualization of her grace and distinct vision for each of us to live within over the course of three ephemeral days. We gathered in a greenhouse for the rehearsal dinner, hiked through a cow field overlooking the ocean to celebrate her union with her beloved, danced the night away in a 200 year old barn at the reception and brunched in the house my great grandmother bought in the 1940's hovering above the ocean. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453396401-SQOF2JFPUWR6HZJXHZ0F/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453478368-LFE0D76H76C7KZNLTOQ3/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453501249-FUTNIS7YI532HUZ3CCB3/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409486947375-ADZHXEHFHBKB5MNNFNX8/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding.   The time was nothing short of dreamy and divine. Each moment more enchanting than the next. And the flowers, oh the flowers! Krishana Collins, the woman who grew, harvested and arranged the flowers is a wood sprite of the highest order. Knowledge of botanicals runs through her veins, and it seems that having her hands in the earth provides her the most profound sustenance. I dream of someday working under her tutelage, learning the names of various flowers, nurturing plants along their path to bloom and harvesting and arranging these naturally occurring works of art into transient sculptures. Oh I digress into romantic dreams. But the flowers, they were alluring. Krishana and her team at Tea Lane Farm conjured almost mystical arrangements that were strategically placed throughout the celebration space. The wedding party was adorned with an array of petals from flower crowns and boutonnieres to beautiful bouquets. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453646588-AWCPZGT2F132P37MUWXM/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453689721-NOOAQ4EWQCWLNK9EF5WL/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453731543-GTXRBBVOYR4O55OZKS32/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1409453556788-TPM8XSY6O52R2WQE91HQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - flowers after the wedding.   The day after the wedding as the sun sunk low in the sky, my mother, daughters and my sister's dearest friend, Kate, journeyed back to the site of the wedding. The land was rich with the energy of the day before and we wandered the fields toward dusk. But before we went wandering there was work to do, a gathering and dismantling of the remnants left behind. Clusters of tiny vases, silver and glass, porcelain and wood, were flocked outside the barn doors. We spent a good hour at play, disassembling arrangements and rearranging them in the grass, strewn over each others' bodies, tossed in the air to see where they fell. Somehow I cajoled one of my daughters into playing the role of an ethereal nymph, and Kate gamely obliged my request as well. I can't even begin to explain how powerful these remains of the day before were. They held a bewitching energy beyond any words I might share with you. I organized and repositioned, strategized on how to coax the right expression from the lovely creatures captivated amongst these petals and stamen. And some how the magic of these blooms seemed to vibrate and we were hooked. For days afterward I offered ice cream and adventures to my daughters and niece in exchange for their playing along and wandering into flower land with me. I think each of us found something to savor as we dreamed our way into a surreal world of botanics. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/7/31/in-the-time-of-flowers-updated monthly 0.5 2014-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827100833-NF6YHKKZVZSZRJFGE6BP/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827170172-Z4DFUGKVPM7Q4FILGYQG/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. encaustic allium pounding. My experiments with flower preservation have been a meandering journey of curiosity and whimsy. It is July in the Midwest and we are in the time of flower abundance. Our yard is filled with beebalm, allium, echinacea, hydrangea and an assortment of other blooms. Over the course of the past six weeks I have honed my flower drying, pressing and pounding techniques. I have photographed flowers and coated said photos in wax. I have pounded flowers into hot press watercolor paper brushed with a wash of alum then adhered these pounding to birch plywood and coated them in beeswax. I have pressed flowers between pages of book and pieces of blotter paper and weighted down cardboard. I've stitched tried and true mending and embroidery stitches onto paper and paired these stitchings with pressed flowers. The results swirl around me now and crowd my studio with ghostly whispers of the flowers that once were. The wax coated poundings seem to echo stories of long ago while the mendings with pressed flowers hold more possibility, like they've been given a second chance, a new opportunity, a chance to explore being from a different perspective. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827245703-WQ0SL8OBFIK73PSSOYD0/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. encaustic photo of drying zinnias. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827301338-9BM1U8DXSG2R3BFEXNBI/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. castilleja two ways: pressed with threaded backstitch & pounded and encased in wax. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827370233-H62QZGQFE840NCZG2TA6/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. pressed daisies & dandelions with basic weaving. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827423057-O69TIGESID1A8E0F1FER/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. market flowers & mini-weaving. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827482452-ENRA2Y5E53HKOCR0VIOD/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. poppy with basic weaving. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1406827551640-GCRYUFCATBVJ5L37Z5LN/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers, updated. wild grasses & square chain couching. I'm excited to continue this exploration of giving new life to that which has lost life. There is so much to learn about mending stitches and working with wax. In moments I feel discouraged by the slow pace of my stitching, but remember that the time is what imbues each piece with its new life and energy, gives it a sense of longevity. I also have crushing moments struggling with the uneven and rippled surfaces of wax on substates, but hopefully with patience and time I will find a smoother surface, achieve a more refined actualization of visions dancing in my head. Here's to the imperfection of each piece and the journey of attempting to make bits of beauty and light to share with you. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/4/28/3tyzp9i3ya34321zds55cy0ltaljf8 monthly 0.5 2014-07-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400692682605-T46PY5K6UOM17WOYHWC0/group+of+girls.jpg blog - dressed: a series in dolls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697500115-B3PELVRZ5VPVN7EUJ9Z7/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls.   The passage of time weighs heavily upon me. I think about it often. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697587722-0KU3YEF7CSYNQSJ3MXDQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls.   Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be a young woman in the 1920's dancing the Charleston, schucking off constricting undergarments for short fringed dresses or billowy tunics. I wonder if I would have enjoyed carousing in Paris in the era of Ernest Hemmingway and Gertrude Stein. Or what the pain and pleasure of a 1950's housewife would feel like, making home for family and husband on a suburban cul-de-sac. Would I have been like the Kate Winslet character in Revolutionary Road, devastated at the imprisonment of infinite domesticity or would I have created a world of intrigue for myself amidst the seeming consistency of it all. Or to inhabit the brain of Marie Curie, conducting obscure research on radioactivity, a loving and intellectually rigorous partnership, 2 Pulitzers. These are some of the infinite imaginings that peak my curiosity, trying on different identities in different times. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697613826-B3PZ26IRRJLXZZ61VUEP/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls.   I consider the passage of time upon my body and on those around me; watching my grandfather steadily shift from a man who could do back handsprings on a summer day well into his late-50's to a man, at 90, who is determined to navigate the halls of his home without the assistance of walker. I study the faces of women around me for the marks of their lives etched finely, creased steadily deeper. I wonder at the unmoving lineless face of a woman in her 70's, elegant and graceful like a tableau in Madame Tussauds. Such preservation is not for me, but I sometimes struggle with the superficiality of aging. I love deeply and dearly the lines of women I have known for many years, watching their faces gain wisdom and beauty as they shift, become more deeply themselves, youth a distant dream. The strong confidence exuded by a proud head of white hair. But there is still a coming to terms with the limits of self-care and self-preservation, an acceptance of the beauty of time trundling slowly by. I recently had a conversation with a Canadian Naturalist about the social pressures of aging. He turned sixty-four this year and received a notice from the government letting him know his pension payments would begin shortly. This has turned his sense of purpose on its head as he still feels the drive to persist, to work, yet is being told that he is no longer essential, vital, no longer needed. This plus the steady breakdown of the body and a longing to regain some of those years of directionless we all have in early adulthood, time we used imperfectly perhaps, add up to a struggle against time. Oh that we used our time always with direction and purpose, ambling toward a distant light. Sometimes I I wish I could fast forward the middle years of forty to 60, not because I don't want those years, but so I could be settled more deeply into myself. If I could preserve my functionality, guarantee the plasticity of my brain, I would like to live a la Tuck Ever Lasting, on the verge of sixty to be fully lined, to live in a rural cottage surrounded by flaking paint and a creeky old pup, a big studio, bountiful gardens, family and friends coming and going as they will. That might be the sweet spot, the shroud of youth dropped away, the wisdom of years in my bones, skill at my finger tips. Would you come join me in the studio for an afternoon? That would be fun, a chat, shared food and some quiet time to make things together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697691079-VAJB2GP6DEPI0KT3QQMK/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697709657-DZLM83XCVBOPJG2JLX0B/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls.   For now I'll have to settle for working with things that have seen the passage of time, that bare the marks of an era, have endured the rotation of seasons turning round the sun. And so my doll project commences, a space to bring alive characters dancing in my head, to take fabric from other peoples past and reimagine it into lives not yet lived. I have loved the dolls of Manon Gignoux since I first laid eyes on them nine years ago. They are odd, quirky, hailing ancient art forms, an archeological dig of sorts, something you might find in an Egyptian pyrimad. They speak of an ancient need for play things, how characters can be so simple and yet create the opportunity to imagine a world around them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697742707-SKDID2ZB1ZLLJGPAJ2MO/image-asset.jpeg blog - dressed: a series in dolls.   My dolls are each created from remnants that I have gathered over the years and stashed in the attic. Many of their garments were once my grandmother's, other bits have been thrifted and accepted as donations, and then there are a smattering of new infusions, mainly Liberty of London fabric, as its patterns speak of times past. I'm hoping to do a series of fifty, each one deeply herself, yet completely unknown in some way. As I unfold each fabric, find a conversation between the different bits and slowly stitch each creature into being they whisper to me of their love and longing, of their whimsy and dreams, of deep passions welling up and burbling over, eager to be in the world. I hope to hear these whispers, to listen closely and share each imagined life, to find lightness along the tunnel of time where it doesn't always live. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/6/10/in-the-time-of-flowers monthly 0.5 2014-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411248374-JQCB45F1NTGNTL393PHB/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411275059-ZXL5I0P5V7QE5EHNE491/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers.   Oh me, oh my it has been a lush and wonderful Spring here in the Midwest. After deep Winter, polar vortex and a slow emergence from hibernation we have been surrounded by growth. Buds slowly opening, lavishing us with their fragrant blooms, reawakening our senses to the smells of a living, breathing earth. It is so easy to forget how deeply I am effected by the changes in our environment, how easily mood can dip and shift as the clouds pass over the sun, winds whip and snow cloaks. But here we are, we have finally arrived in the time of flowers. It begins slowly and we watch for crocuses, daffodils, tulips. We hold our breath as the magnolias begin to bud, a slow and steady crescendo to a brief extravagance. Then there are apple and cherry blossoms, flowering trees drop their snow and we amble toward irises, columbine, inching to allium, poppies then settle into hydrangeas, cone flowers and black eyed susans. A brief summer submerges us, plunges us into her essence, a scent enlivening yet fleeting. We are out of doors, we commune, alive with the wonder of our world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411294870-6VWCKRY052D79M3BARFE/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411320467-3UBC51N2CGOYPXKBAGKK/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers.   As the seasons shift from one to another I always think about the different ways to harness the spirit of a season. Is there a way to store a piece of each season within to draw on as needed? How do we reference the moment we are not in? Flowers, such fragile structures, represent phases of the season from which they hail. They are alive with that moment in time where nature has coddled them under her eves, nurtured them along to the exact moment where they burst forth chanting March, April, May, June and so on. How exactly then might we capture that moment in time? Is it possible? Is it possible to preserve what slips through our fingers so readily? Can we pluck something from its environment yet still preserve the essence of what it is? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411354698-TO27WPQJVHFE5NU1NN1J/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411391905-94VQRIP39HXEUM13LAC1/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers.   Flower preservation has a long and storied history and methodology from drying to pressing to pounding to waxing. For eons artists have sought to harness a bit of the botanical spirit, to represent the beauty and quintessence of what so stimulates our senses. The work of Carmon Almon enchants me to no end. I remember discovering her on a steamy summer day, feeling how deeply she understood flowers as her renderings depict them so closely yet go further to the place beyond. Not only does she enshrine their beauty and spirit, but she reveals a haunting under layer that speaks of their power to hold our attention. As flowers bloom all around I feel compelled to enter this fray of harnessing a bit of that botanical essence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411485710-WYQMKNCQP382WGPO3I1B/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411512944-0ZPG79FRPLFZX2LY3NTI/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411644459-6OREB9S8EBHOZDO86NFQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411710790-V3353C28V4H1RSZVJ2C5/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers.   But how and what exactly is it that I seek to represent? There is a ghostly and ancient spirit that lives and breaths within each flower, a phantom that utters a primal syllable tickling us awake. When we pull a flower from her place, uproot her from her life blood, how might we do her justice as her life is snuffed out? I am intrigued by this effort. Dusting dirt from roots, I think about how we can repair something we have intentionally destroyed. How might I stitch her bits back together, salvage the colors leaching from her petals? It is this that I have begun to explore, slowly experimenting with various forms of flower preservation most to imperfect effect. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411772883-31451KBONAXQWAXXD3J1/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411793781-1VS71CVELANXG4ZIMUPY/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411816700-YNARC4HU4S5AJY6LLSJF/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1402411844704-LZ1MES871FVO28MQ9AG0/image-asset.jpeg blog - in the time of flowers.   I have pounded floral bits into hot press watercolor paper, dunked delicate blooms into 130 degree wax, sandwiched weeds and wild bouquets between heavy pages and strung a garland of blooms across my kitchen. The results are indeed intriguing and layered and reference the spirit of the flower, but I am left wondering if there is a way to mend that spirit into completion? To shout her beauty from the page and have it echo back with a resounding, "YES, I am still alive!" As we destroy our fragile eco-systems and deplete our quality of life efforts to preserve what was steadily emerge. People plot the rewilding of large swaths of land, freeze their wounded bodies in a cryonic hope that someday somebody will be able to restore their health. And in that vein, I continue to fear the snuffing out of our blooms and how once they are gone we might remember them and later still, bring them back. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/5/13/cooking-with-you monthly 0.5 2014-06-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399998974007-6ZCSMHYBRHT27ZUWYX47/rhubarb.jpg blog - cooking with you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399999007176-Z2BTZFS90W8ELGAIEPAH/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   I'm over the moon about the cropping up of Spring produce. I mean to say beyond words excited , alive with the desire to consume sustenance from our local terra. I am hungry for the deliciousness that we nurture from the earth. Winter in the midwest, although wonderful in so many ways, presents a somewhat depressed food economy. Trips to the store find labels from far off lands. We are unable to feed ourselves locally in the winter. I do my best to preserve food during our growing season. Last year I put up 30 quarts of applesauce, 27 quarts of tomatoes, 100 pounds of blueberries, another hundred of sour cherries, made 16 pints of jalapeno-onion-sweet pepper jam, 5 pints of corn relish, 8 pints of sweet pepper relish, 7 quarts of cucumber pickles, 4 pints of pickled green beans, many four ounce jars of pickled beets, roasted pureed and froze umpteen kabocha and red kuri squash, and oh the pesto, was there ever pesto, mint, basil and parsley varieties. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400697304691-HHJKB7TX2NE3A8TIJGL8/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399999166973-WUTIDV13E7K5T2YF6JAD/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   So Spring. Here we are, and I am going to eat it up! Did I mention that I love simple delicious food. Well sometimes I like things a little more complicated, but generally I tend toward helping ingredients to reveal their flavors. I'm some what of an intuitive cook, every now and then taking inspiration from recipes, but not necessarily following them to a T. That being said I have been deeply inspired by other peoples approaches to food. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399999293686-W4R6EJ6UHQ3CPRMBLAA5/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   Did you read or see the movie Julie & Julia ? It is the story of one woman, Julie Powell, who is drawn to the food of Julia Child. She spends a year cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is a love affair of sorts, a striving to create and master a certain artistry, an adventure in feeding herself and her love. Well, on many occasions I've had a delicious meal somewhere and thought, oh dear goodness me I want to apprentice myself to this or that chef, cook in their shadow for a year and then bring all sorts of new and wonderful skills home. I don't really actually want to do this, but that is what's great about cookbooks. You can apprentice yourself to a certain chef by traipsing through their work at your own pace, reading between the lines, delving into and applying the practical knowledge laid out before you. I believe after Julie & Julia a certain trend of cooking your way through a book was kicked off. I remember hearing about people cooking their way through Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, starting food clubs and inviting fellow Ottolenghi lovers to join them to sample his recipes. I love this concept, expanding the restaurant into the community. Engaging in a larger food conversation. Cooking together, cooking for each other as an act of creativity, as an act of generosity, as an act of gratitude. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400172327400-FYFW9NDE0DKTQQDENDOO/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400172362702-5OYXJ2XVIWG65R8C010T/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400172383687-FJY5FG7UAKF90SETWIG0/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   I would venture to say that I've had devoted love affairs with a few cookbooks. Over the past couple of years: Plenty by Ottolenghi, Small Plates & Sweet Treats by Aran Goyoaga, and Salt to Taste by Marco Canora. Last year I marked up and preserved with Saving the Season by Kevin West. And for delicious and nutritious gluten free baked goods I often refer to the Gluten Free Goddess blog. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400696311576-GYKL6G0WODLE9F99TZIQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   A few weeks ago I was invited to an evening discussion of canning and strawberry jam making demonstration by Marissa McClellan. She is the host of the blog Food in Jars and has written a book by the same name. Most recently she published Preserving by the Pint. I can not say enough good things about her work. I had not experimented with any of her recipes prior to attending the event, but me oh my, I am now a devotee. (Yes, I have a moderately obsessive personality.) Preserving by the Pint is organized by the season and begins with Spring. I don't suspect I'll make every recipe, but I might come close. I've begun studying the book and tabbed the pages of things I am committed to making. Thus far I've made and made again and then made again in a triple batch her oven-roasted rhubarb compote, seven batches of ramp kimchi, four batches of pickled ramps, a double batch of butternut squash butter, pickled spring onions, a double batch of mustardy rhubarb chutney, blueberry maple jam, and from her blog, rhubarb orange butter.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400696395532-1TX09B5J7QIT8ZBJ86QR/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   I am usually so excited to have fresh local produce in the Spring and so many early season crops are short lived, a wake up call to the palette, that I never think to attempt putting them up. But this year, this year is different. I might venture to say Marisa's inspiration is changing my approach to food. I've already started adding more fermented foods to the side of my plate at most meals. For years I've read about the benefits, but have not been sold on fermentation only because my childhood picky-eater self crops her head up and draws a firm line in the sand, you will not eat that. Every now and then when I go out to eat, which let's be hones,t is really Really not very often, if we are having a tasting menu, from a forager's delight sort of a place like Elizabeth, I resolve that I will try whatever is put in front of me. That means I've tried a few more organ meats than I might have otherwise, and a crudo or ceviche something or other that definitely would not have otherwise graced my palette. But, even if I end up not liking a given item, I have learned much about preparation and presentation and that both can really sway the oral experience. Things that I might never have considered trying ten years ago, I am slowly learning to incorporate into my own diet. Steps I would have rejected out of hand, like soaking and dehydrating nuts, have become common place. The other day I was having a conversation with my husband about kimchi and fermented foods in general. Over the past few years we've dabled in fermentation, thanks to the inspiration of Sandor Katz. We've made beet kavass and attempted coconut water kefir, to good and not so good success respectively. But after reading parts of The Art of Fermentation I still wasn't confident in my ability to make something both tasty and fermented. I also get a little skeeged out when opening a commercial fermented product as my nose is a little skeptical about what bacteria might be running around in there. But after making ramp kimchi from Preserving by the Pint and having it with my eggs for the past week I am sold. I believe I can populate my gut flora with so many divine bacteria and not feel like I'm eating it just because it is good for me and I will someday acquire a taste for it, but because it is delicious and well I made it. Thank you Marisa for coming up with and sharing such deliciously flavorful and easy enough to make recipes!! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1400696432089-ZZ5TLCC14V75HFBQ18Z4/image-asset.jpeg blog - cooking with you.   So here we are, in a time of growing. And next winter, when we are eating mountains of kale from California and our chickens have stopped laying I'm hoping I'll pop open a jar of rhubarb compote or pickled spring onions and be able to taste the sheer excitement of the beginning of Spring. Tell me, have you done much in the way of Spring food preservation? Have you had an unexpected love affair with a cookbook or style of cooking? Just curious. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/5/12/bloom-grow monthly 0.5 2014-05-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399920315617-QPVR5DC20GDSQ3LITLVH/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399920408980-KLN83D4FUGLXCLFFX6SZ/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. I cringe to call myself suburban, but when we get to the heart of the matter, it is true. I no longer live in a fourteen story pre-war apartment building in New York City, a Victorian in San Francisco, a Craftsman in Atlanta, or a brownstone in Chicago. No I live in a house built in 1894 in the town of Evanston. Evanston, although it abuts Chicago is decidedly a university town that happens to share a public transportation system with the city of Chicago. As somebody who has a strong draw to urban life and the cultural access that comes with proximity to a city, this place where I can walk and ride my bike most places, has become home. Yes it is true that I dream of living in the country. Perhaps in a co-housing community on an organic farm. Perhaps in rural Wisconsin with a great big old barn that has been converted into an art studio and gallery space. But for now, this is where our roots are. This is where we will grow. As the mid-western growing season ramps (no pun intended) up, I have been thinking a lot about growing ones own food as a creative act. Each year our attempts at gardening have expanded. When we lived in Atlanta I thought for sure if I threw seeds at the earth and never tended to them something would grow. I was disheartened when zinnias were the only thing that really took root. Oh and there was the year of ordering tomato transplants by mail and growing one beautiful Cherokee Purple. I think that was a $30 tomato with a larger carbon footprint then I would have intended. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399920484115-FZOM2HHBH2WC8QCOPZOC/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. My paternal grandmother was an amazing gardener. I remember her rambling zucchini plants, vining green beans and well pruned raspberry brambles vividly. But growing skill is not genetic in my case. And since I have only really come to growing our food since her passing. I can only conjure her in my planting, not stoop by her side in the garden plugging seeds into the earth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399995717873-RLFU6RQBTBD0NV46S63N/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. All of this to say that I am not the worlds most astute gardener. I do not take well to following directions, paying attention to certain details or organization, but oh I am inspired. I am inspired by urban growers everywhere from Detroit to Milwaukee to the south side of Chicago where just last week an ordinance was past whereby vacant land can be sold for a dollar for civic use or otherwise. I am inspired by the urban farm movement of the special period in Cuba where people with little and little capacity to import food grew their own. I am inspired by those who have left big cities as part of the contemporary small organic farm movement whereby people who love good food and believe in sustainable practices, that do not deplete the soil, grow food and sell it. I am inspired by four season growing pioneer, Elliot Coleman, and the Locavore movement. I am inspired by the act of putting a seed in the ground, watering it, nurturing it and watching it grow to maturity. I am inspired by the chance to harvest a meal from my own backyard. Although I might be a lazy grower in part, there is an itching determination to learn by error and to grow, one meal at a time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399920533965-ZFLBHV5Z8X9JL33N6AZE/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. This year I thought it might be a worthwhile experiment to better track our growing efforts, to keep tabs on what fails and what succeeds, to observe the change in our growing plots through the Spring, Summer and into Autumn. And, well I thought I just might share a little bit of that here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399995770172-37H7UCC3Z616LYX6Z2H3/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. Thus far our herb boxes are overflowing with mint, oregano and chives. The parsley, thyme and lavender are struggling to make a come back. The apple and cherry trees I planted four years ago are blossoming, and the seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago are sprouting. I've ripped out more raspberry brambles then I care to mention and am doing my best to contain these rambling wanderers. This past weekend our first outdoor farmers market got me so excited I decided to plant three rhubarb and nine asparagus crowns. I love early spring foods, ramps most especially, and always long for more of them. Who knows how I would feel if we had access to asparagus and rhubarb year round, but since we don't they are dear treasures. Treasures I hope to cultivate and harvest and share. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399995922542-P1PVGVG7POZNKTE8KD0B/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. Last year I came to terms with the fact that my efforts to grow peaches, peppers, eggplants, potatoes, carrots and corn were somewhat futile. This year we are sticking to what I have firmly established I can actually grow. So our list of foods that are in the ground and I feel confident will provide some degree of sustenance are: collards, kale, swiss chard, lettuce, beets, snap peas, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, cippollini onions, strawberries and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. Oh and there is one moon and stars watermelon. Let's keep our fingers crossed for her. Much of this is from seed, but some are transplants. To date my efforts to grow seedlings indoors and properly transfer them have not been successful. I have ideas and plans for the years to come, but for now we are a seed and other peoples' transplant sort of growing establishment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1399920589774-MMQG2RH1DUNLOMQZDXOS/image-asset.jpeg blog - chronicles of a sub-urban grower. I am eager to nurture our little vegetable patches along and to harvest summer meals from our garden. We are fine tuning our irrigation system for optimal efficiency of water usage and already harvesting mint for salads and smoothies. Oh how I am looking forward to all that will come from our growing efforts. I wonder at all the possibility of what we can make on this little patch of land we call our backyard. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/4/23/spring-has-sprung monthly 0.5 2014-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398275764306-8GH4RFNWGB0UWR7TQJXA/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung. It is Spring again. The earth is like a child who knows poems by heart. -R.M. Rilke https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398275848268-YJZHJAQJUD2DT994DOML/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   Like so many in this neck of the woods I have been looking forward to Spring and when the Equinox rolled around, I was eager, but underwhelmed by the lack of blooming springiness in my midst. In fact it was very much still winter here. I have a sign that I stitched many years ago that I usually hang up around late February after all the Winter Solstice/Welcome Winter decorations have been taken down that requests, Come Spring. Or maybe it commands, or begs, I'm not entirely sure. The equinox is when the light seems so obviously to have crept back to us. Our chickens orchestrated a laying protest during the last month of Winter, not a single egg. Then suddenly the light shifted and temperatures steadily began to rise and voila we were back to almost an egg a day per chicken. And so the first month of spring has come and gone and we are well on our way to bloom and grow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398275914495-M7Z4WX42TN37JGI5CC5Z/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   Last week my sister, brother-in-law and two nieces came to visit. There was plenty of mad chaos and delight for everybody, plus lots of delicious food cooked, adventuring about and plenty of time to commune at home. For me this time of year is about reemergence, celebrating the light, planting seeds. It is a time to reflect on the fertility of the earth and the potential of all beings, the freedom to comfortably be out of doors for long stretches of time, the reimagining of connecting to and participating in my community. As a mother of two young children I think a lot about what traditions we are creating as a family and for our children. I think about how to give meaning and shape to the year as we shift through the seasons. I grew up celebrating Easter, but admittedly I have searched outside my childhood box for spiritual meaning and sustenance. My husband grew up a cultural Jew in New York, steeped in the rigor of communist thought and intellectual inquiry. But, organized religion does not feel like a genuine connection point for us and so we have sought to create something else for our family. I'm not exactly sure what this something else is, but I know that it has something to do with community, food and making. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398275959014-0BPTEL54FGAIHWOQBXWQ/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   This year as our Welcome Spring, not quite Passover nor Easter, but a subtle homage to the two and more ancient traditions, Celebration we decorated eggs. I talked about the chickens laying more eggs, the abundance of bunnies we are suddenly seeing around town, how the earth and animals seem to be bursting with life and how we too seem to be just as eager to embrace the world outside our door. Happy Fertility and Blooming Day was heard more than once in our backyard discussions. But really it was about the chance to make art together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398276019319-SYHLHABHT6H4D1IFP02N/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   And I think we did a pretty good job of making said art. There was a good amount of set-up required, but the results were worth it. I have an affinity for natural dyes and making everything myself, sometimes it works like a dream, and other times, not so much. Three years ago we experimented with beets, tumeric and blueberries to imperfect effect, but I've steadily honed my craft and this year tumeric and red cabbage created deep and satisfying colors after an overnight soak in their color baths. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398276088024-CSX2SZ3Q6CZPYBEXIAR1/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   My girls were in the market for more of a quick fix and although factory farmed conventional eggs and kool-aid aren't exactly things I have any desire to support, sometimes I bend a little. Paint pens from the local art store and kool-aid mixed with oil helped us create pretty dreamy marbleized and patterned eggs. We also experimented with collecting leaves and blooms from around the neighborhood, pressing them to our eggs, then wrapping and securing old stocking around the egg to hold the plant matter in place. These eggs were dunked in kool-aid and when peeled apart created cool shadow prints! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398276150026-EV99GDIESZKZY7HYU9WV/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398276213840-XPHDP9COT9EIVT9TKDNG/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1398276268490-IB9VXEFZH6PTHHGDGQTB/image-asset.jpeg blog - spring has sprung.   It feels as if a solid foundation for our celebration of spring has been laid. I look forward to growing these traditions with my extended family in the years to come. How do you and your family welcome spring? I'd love to know. Feel free to leave your stories in the comments section. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/4/14/uncovering-winters-decay monthly 0.5 2014-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1397482150996-GS7ZTPEGL0B8PTQRBP8B/image-asset.jpeg blog - decay to bloom.   As the snow peels back and a rich and sleeping earth thaws to reveal itself, leaves and branches in various stages of decomposition stare me in the face. Last summer's oregano and hydrangeas reach stringy brown arms in a spray of limbs around our dormant garden. This past weekend I hacked out the long legs of last year's raspberry brambles, pruned back all manners of flower stems, turned the soil in our vegetable beds, and made a mental list of all that needs to be done in order for our summer garden to bloom. While I snipped and raked, the growth of seasons past sifting through my fingers, I had a sense of wonder at all the surrounding decay. The sky was gray and mysterious, thunder rumbling in the distance, and I was there with the past. The echoes of last year and the year before whispering their stories in my ear. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1397482653703-NVFZTQ5JY7IAS3UFQDW1/moth+eaten. blog - decay to bloom.   I am forever wondering at these vestiges of the past, how they color the present and allude to infinite possibilities. It is these reverberations that guide and provoke. As things are destroyed, beloved clothing moth eaten or worn to a thread, last years flowers, pedals long gone, a beautiful skeleton, an opportunity comes to imagine something new. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1397504976630-DD843FY0UCDOO0170J9E/bloom+under+the+eves. blog - decay to bloom.   Amidst all that is broken down, chives and tulips creep up from beneath the bed of leaves, buds begin to burst open, the grass is looking greener and in the quiet between the bird song and raindrops there is the hum of new life- fed on a healthy diet of yesterday. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/3/27/urban-tundra monthly 0.5 2014-03-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1396018967679-JG2GYTBYQWD8TQ13JP5S/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. Every year I eagerly await the arrival of our local urban tundra. Chicagoland may not exactly be the Arctic circle, but sometimes it resembles such vast, flat, frozen land. At the height of winter one can sometimes find twenty foot tall ice walls, temporary caves and icebergs along our lakefront. This is my eighth winter here and each year is different. Last year there was little sign of the beloved temporary glaciers as our winter temperatures never stayed below freezing for long. Given that we are steadily warming our planet, to devastating effect on a large scale, I feared our scenes of winter might never return. But this year, while the warmest winter on record for so many areas of the world, was full-fledge, old-school winter here in the mid-western United States. We had four days where the temperatures plummeted to fifteen degrees below zero and almost three months where we never broke freezing. That said, this was an epic year for our urban tundra. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395945552756-57RTP2FVWD88R8QIIRI2/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. I had grand plans to closely chronicle the ebb and flow of said tundra, it's beauty and detail in different lights, the mounding shattered ice piles as they stretched ever further out into the lake. Alas, there were many occasions when I failed to have my camera in hand at the right moment, and other days when the cold was anything but persuasive at enticing me toward the lake. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395945670254-OJPGXNATWALOBBQUFDZN/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. I did make many pilgrimages to our fair frozen land. It's massive size, colors ever changing to reflect temperature and weather, are a source of grounding, solace and context for me. We don't have great mountains here or epic canyons or briny seas, but this body of fresh water serves as a primary connection to nature here in the Midwest. In late August there is no greater freedom than swimming out towards the endless horizon at sunset. But, winter's waters offer a different form of meditation. Some mornings the lake appears almost haunted, a subtle sheet of fog hovering over the icy sheets and other times stark and bright, fully revealed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395945763955-19GMIN19D2CLNU8CG14P/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. And so we watch it grow, waves slapping against the shore forming sculptures that join hands with themselves climbing higher. We strap on crampons and scale sheer faces, look for our reflections in the bluey cold, and slide joyfully down frosty mounds. Until one day it begins to slowly fade. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395946003238-ZK24P37CXB6LTMK5M6BN/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. Ice chunks break apart and drift off into warming waters. Mountain faces slip back into the blue abyss and we watch it go. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395965080132-3Z1Q54KMMWU6GVPZFAER/image-asset.jpeg blog - urban tundra. Then one day rising temperatures ease the last jagged edges back into rolling waters and we are left with wind and waves. I know that I am eager for the warmth that Spring brings, the joys of new growth and the possibility of casting off coats and substituting winter boots, for rain boots, for clogs, for flip-flops, but in this loss I feel a little bit of heartbreak, a little fear that this may be the last year of the giant glacier. So, as I dream of planting seeds and growing sunflowers and tomatoes, I will squirrel away my hopes for urban tundra, pack it tightly in the nest of my heart like so many nuts, ready and hoping for next winter. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/3/21/its-snowing-down-south monthly 0.5 2014-07-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395440115124-28ROOP42RV2JMN5G3IG7/image-asset.jpeg blog - it's snowing down south. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395685236081-XOWLN3XTUNOO9V3SK0K6/image-asset.jpeg blog - it's snowing down south. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395685299294-LOX5T0IV9HOJYX1XFZA9/image-asset.jpeg blog - it's snowing down south. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395686091107-WXOT7Q9NHDND9IDOODA9/image-asset.jpeg blog - it's snowing down south. https://www.vanessafilley.com/blog/2014/3/17/as-seen-nyc monthly 0.5 2014-09-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395095688767-K4J0AMMC2GU8CKV5MHSR/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096000602-58OEB6GHR1UJHHX1QZVX/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096026589-ZGURO5GMRZHGRMKCT3CK/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096070583-KX20I1R56UNWYJYVHF2P/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096104738-KVTAZQF9R1WYX3RDK5L6/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096149176-KWKNH154OQKDELX8CCS3/image-asset.jpeg blog - as seen: nyc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/530788a8e4b09a18ce10527d/1395096191698-5GVGML4GWOWQC1UZR393/image-asset.jpeg 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