I am very proud to share with you...

Some months ago Liz Kalloch contacted me and asked if I would participate in a project she was working on.  In her words:

I'm working on a year-long story/painting project called Tools & Talismans—a series of vignette paintings I'm creating based on photos of tools and talismans from 100 different women that relate to how each of them expresses herself.

We hear a lot these days about the importance of story—from story telling slams to marketers and media specialists creating full blown brands based around a story. Story is how we learn, it's how we connect to each other and to the larger world, and story is not limited to words alone.

I'm contacting creators and healers, thinkers and makers, wordsmiths and visionaries—women whose expression and voice in the world is passionate, strong and brave—asking them to participate. I've already gathered some amazing submissions, the project has momentum and the people who've participated have told me that it’s been an amazing experience for them.

Your needlepoint work is aMAZing, and I love how you've taken a craft that many might consider "old-fashioned" and made it relevant again. I'd love to include your "story" through a gathering of tools and talismans that you use to do your work and tell your stories. 

I was intrigued and interested in being a part of Liz's project. Tools, Liz explained are ones that I use nearly everyday in my work or personal life. Talismans, she explained, refers to anything that is potent or magical or filled with goodness—for me.

I spent some time thinking about what I would like to present that was both useful and meaningful to me.  The photo below is what I sent to Liz.

This is what I wrote:
I am: A Taster of Color
I believe that “presentation” sets the tone of our aesthetic journey. I love to make things look beautiful, the more mundane the objects, the more I search for just the right way to make them hopelessly appealing. Hence my addiction with glass vials, with perfect boxes, with a custom hanging system for all my fibers, (and fibers, and fibers). A little notebook for jotting down lists, an array of lip-glosses for lips that need a little perking up, and my mini business cards that introduce me visually, these are always with me. Sumptuous fibers to drool over, along with my gold plated needles that are, to me, the epitome of indulgence and Ultrasuede, one of man’s great contributions to our world; these are what I make my art with. Tools make me happy, and with my little hammer I form a sheet of metal into an object, what wonder! And then there is the gold bracelet that my grandmother gave me when I was born, with my name beautifully engraved in Hebrew letters. This is where I came from; all the others are where I’m going. When you don’t know where you came from, the journey forward will be very poorly lit.

Liz has entered my story in her Journal. You can see the painting and the story on her site.  Take a look CLICK.

Cool, eh?