As I've begun to explore more with different types of weaving (circular weaving and shaft loom weaving), and enjoying the materiality and physicality of working with textiles, I've also begun to think more about the element of utility and functionality that is historically so intertwined with craft-based mediums like textiles.  While I've been enjoying learning the ins and outs of shaft loom weaving with my recently purchased table loom, circular weaving remains one of my favourite ways to create with fibres.  I experimented with how I could incorporate a clock motion into my circle weavings, and my first woven clock was born.  As nearly all of my previous work has been either conceptual or decorative until this point, I'm excited to start a new creative chapter in crafting functional objects.  That said, I continue to have ideas and ambitions for conceptual pieces that I would like to weave, especially as I learn more and become more adept with my table loom.

With these new explorations and directions, however, I've been thinking about how I identify as a maker: Do I call myself an "artist" or a "craft-person"? Is there a difference? Are they synonymous? To me, to be a craft-person connotes a degree of skill-fullness and refinement in technique and execution, while to be an artist connotes a degree of conceptual, intellectual or political drive behind the work.  I worry that my recent work is not conceptual enough to call myself an artist, yet not skilled enough to call myself a craft-person. Can I be both at the same time? Can I switch from one to another? Or an I just worrying about an arbitrary distinction that doesn't really exist? How did this post about clocks turn into a tangent about my creative identity crisis?

I first developed a fascination with the human heart as a subject just over two years ago when I went through some extreme life-changing events that made me feel as though my heart had been destroyed and I needed a new one.  So I made myself one (below).  This was the first thing I made with needle felting, which was a very cathartic process involving violently stabbing the wool roving repeatedly with a needle until it matted into felt.  I have recently revived my interest in the human heart, and am currently experimenting with some ideas (above).