Yesterday I sat by the pool watching my granddaughters swim while reading a book on eco-printing.

I had almost given up on it.

Not because I wasn't interested, but because I was approaching it as a technique. I wanted to understand the process. Which leaves work? Which mordants? Which tannins? How long should it steam?

This time I started at the beginning and read the artists' stories instead of skipping ahead to the instructions.

Everything changed.

Again and again, I encountered the same idea.

No two results are ever the same.

The same leaf can print differently depending on the season. Some artists observed differences between leaves picked in the morning and those gathered later in the day. Water chemistry matters. Soil matters. Weather matters.

Nature participates.

As I sat reading, I found myself looking across the yard at the tall flower stalks of my hostas.

For years I have worked with wool, yarn, fabric, and fiber. I choose the materials, learn the techniques, and guide the process. Yet I am beginning to see that the most interesting work happens when I leave room for something beyond my control.

The wool has its own character.

A fleece reveals itself slowly as it is washed, carded, spun, woven, or felted. Natural dyes shift with the water, the weather, and the materials gathered. A leaf leaves behind its mark, but never quite the same mark twice.

The result is not simply made by the artist.

It emerges through a collaboration.

Perhaps that is what has drawn me toward natural materials all along.

Not perfection.

~ Karen

Not control.

Participation.

The more I pay attention, the more I notice that nature is not simply a source of materials.

It participates.

And when it does, the work becomes far more interesting than anything I could have planned alone.