Today I write you with a heavy, broken heart. My mother (and one of our Founders), passed in November after a 3.5 year battle with ovarian cancer. The end was fast and caught us by surprise after so many years where she was able to live life fully in spite of her diagnosis. I thought that I could write something special to honor her here, but I cannot yet bring myself to do that. Suffice it to say that all the artistic and creative things I love are because of her influence. She was my mother, a soul sister, and my best friend. One of these days I will share more about her, but I don’t believe I’ve come to terms with her passing enough to do so now.
Shortly after I wrote the last update I was blindsided to learn that the last weeks of my mom’s life were underway and so I spent much of November and early December in California to support her and my family and grieve together. As a result I have no updates to report on the Blouse Project. The only clarity I had in the weeks following her passing was that I was determined to get our project situated into the workshop space and that I have a deep desire to work alongside other creative professionals in this space. In other words – I now believe the solution to our workshop conundrum is to lease out the second room to another creative professional and build a sense of creative community at the space. The single room in the two room space is perfectly adequate for our needs at this point – if we are careful we can get 2 sewing machines, a cutting table, some storage, and a large desk in there for computer work and the digitizer. With that we should be able to complete the initial Founder’s Circle work, develop some new designs, and make space for whatever comes next for this work.
That said, we are realistically looking at resuming Founder’s Circle sewing in February, while we learn how to use the Juki’s and set up the space.
I wish you all a beautiful holiday season with your loved ones filled with light, love, peace and warmth.
I am so grateful for your continued support.
Reid