In June 2024, I lived as an artist-in-residence at the Lakeside Inn in Lakeside, Michigan. The gift of living in a carriage house on the shore of Lake Michigan, making art with the ferns and wild strawberry that grew outside my door, falling asleep to the frogs croaking in the pond out back, and connecting with the people who make the cogs of the inn run smoothly came at a transitional time when my youngest was graduating and about to leave the nest. I arrived with few expectations and far too many materials, exhausted from life and family and transitions. The residence gave me time to rest, a soulful place to reconnect with my self, and studio space to spread out.

Most days, the rhythm of life at the Inn and in the studio swept me into a flow that became my favorite meditation as I became lost in the playing and the making. The materials that I had carried with me from Kansas felt irrelevant as I was entranced with the flora right outside. I began making art not only inspired by the landscape but with the landscape and Michigan sunshine. I didn’t anticipate making so many cyanotype prints, but how could I not make memories with and of this place? Some days, shadows of sand and beach stones printed cyanotyped fabric, while other days the ferns were my subject. I discovered wild strawberry by the pond and made prints honoring the strawberry moon. I felt like a child as I found fiddleheads while exploring between the enormous ferns and the giant tulip tree. Flowers from the farmers market, wild garlic scavenged from a roadside ditch, fallen petals from a faded peony, beach grass, ginkgo leaves that mirrored the wallpaper motif… all these felt of the utmost importance to capture in silhouette in blue.

It was the most magical culmination of making and becoming that I’ve ever experienced.