Residing Artistically - Sou'wester Fall 2025
G and I spent a last week living simply and creatively at Sou'wester, in the Westcraft trailer on the north edge of the park. We drove the long way there in a truly torrential downpour (I lost a windshield wiper and bent the other one!), arriving right at sunset.
After setting up our workspace and taking a quick walk to the beach at dusk, I sat down to paint a quilt. I didn't really have a vision in mind, I just started painting and ended up with a slightly chaotic but pleasing conglomeration of simple blocks.
After a late night and a sleep on the softest mattress I've ever felt (not in a good way), I woke with a sore back and a lot of motivation. I spent two days piecing the quilt together, with breaks to eat, sauna and work on other projects. I was surprised how much I enjoyed piecing the improv curvy blocks, and will have to explore more of that soon.
I brought 6 projects and 2 books to read, and I actually spent time on ALL of them throughout the week. But my main focus was on my start-to-finish Sou'wester quilt. I nearly blistered my thumb hand quilting the whole thing in one day.
Lulled by the rain pounding on the metal roof, I spent almost no time on my phone, except to do some quilt math. It was so nice to be focused on creating with breaks almost solely being to nourish myself: a meal, a walk, a sauna session, tea time in the tiniest trailer.
The wifi didn't reach us at the edge of the park; we embraced living offline the way things used to be. There were less dishes to dirty. There was less space to spread out and make a mess. There was kind of only room to do one thing at a time so I found myself choosing more wisely.
Our last full day I sewed on the binding and inked the quilting lines onto the original painting, then spent a while doing some embroidery and reading. I really enjoyed the process of painting as design, it propelled me forward in the spaces when I was struggling to continue. It made it feel easy to look at one block and just think, Ok, I just need to make that one block. And to draw the stitches onto the painting felt like a great culmination, a finale, the paper and fabric joining hands to take a bow together before the curtain falls.
I realized I came with a box of fabric and left with a quilt, almost as if the little trailer was a transformation machine. Like Sylvester McMonkey McBean's Star-on and Star-off machines from Dr. Suess's Sneetches stories: supplies go in, art comes out.
I'll definitely be visiting Sou'wester again, and in the meantime I'll be looking out for any opportunity to give myself the gift of an artist residency, even for just one hour in my house.
Stitching in the Art trailer's very calming space: Indigo Sanctuary: Little Blue Houses to Hold Hope by Iris Sullivan Daire