It's a question I ask myself often — usually in the quiet stretch between projects, when the wool is put away and the studio is still and I find myself feeling, strangely, lost.

When I'm not in the middle of making something, something in me goes dim. I know this about myself now. The creating isn't a hobby. It isn't even a calling, exactly. It's more like breathing.

I've spent a lot of time wondering why that is. Why is it, for some of us, a need?

Here's what I believe: we are all creators. On a deeper level, creating is how we connect with the divine spark that exists in all life. As we learn, as we experience life, as we make something from nothing — we expand. And it is love and support, divine in nature, that nourishes the soul during that process. The quiet of the studio. The stillness before the vision arrives. That is where the connection lives.

For me, the moment of ignition comes when raw wool begins to transform under my hands. When I'm felting a sculpture, or pulling color through fiber, there is a mystical quality to it — as if I'm not working alone. I am collaborating with something that already exists. I'm not making something from nothing. I'm participating in a transformation.

Co-creating. That's the word I keep coming back to.

Lately that collaboration has become literal. I've been learning eco-printing — using the leaves and petals from our garden to dye fabric and press their impressions into cloth. My husband Frank has a gift with growing things. Our garden right now is extraordinary. And as I carry armfuls of leaves to my studio, I've realized: this is it. This is what drives my work. The collaboration with the living world around me.

The plants don't know they're making art. But I know. And something in that partnership — between my intention and their existence — makes me feel invigorated. Alive. Curious in the best possible way.

If you've ever felt that pull — toward making, toward the inexplicable need to create something that didn't exist before — I think you understand exactly what I mean.

And I think that's why you're here.

With love,
~ Karen