Tag Archives: inspiration

Dec 11 2025
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drawing, History, Short Fiction, Uncategorized

Shedding Skin 3

We talk of history repeating itself, and I think it’s meant as a negative statement. As in, “when will you learn” NOT to do something. Mistakes happen again and again; heads hit the same wall to no avail. Nations go to war at one end of the spectrum and children rebel against parents at the other end.

When I did or said certain things growing up, I was “just like Heather,” my adventurous, independent 1960s auntie who never married. She told me once, “You can be lonely in a relationship too.” Oddly, I let everyone down when I married and had a child. Now who would they live through vicariously?

History is history.

When the stars realign and the situation seems pretty familiar, it’s actually the present offering new opportunities. Shedding the past to receive a new present. To accept and digest the present–not throw it all over the place in bloody pieces to create more harm. It’s been a privilege to participate in relearning the history of the land that I have always called home.

Shout out to Kaleidoscope Theatre! https://kaleidoscope.bc.ca/shows/frozen-river/

Recently I read the play Frozen River [Nikwatin Sipiy] by Michaela Washburn, Joelle Peters and Carrie Costello … I hope to see it performed locally and won’t spoil the brilliant end. But the character in that play who really caught my attention was Moon. Always there in the background, above the actors, watching, commenting. Cycling through seasons and decades–different each time, but given time, similar. Our shared past no matter how we try to deny it.

It feels like we are at so many intersections that require choices. Frozen River gives hope in so many ways.

My family found a new refrain to replace “Just like Heather.” “Why are you so sensitive?” I always shrugged: It’s what an artist is. It’s what the moon brings to the world–the mystery of seeing into the dark, illuminating it, and coming out with a story.

Will we shed old skin and emerge new and perhaps more vulnerable? That’s how it feels to publish writing. Putting artwork out. Staging plays. Sometimes courage is needed to just to voice compassion in a room where thick skins and sarcasm dampen conservsation.

Home: 10 Short Stories is a collection of stories covering a cycle of seasons. Threads of toughness shimmer through difficult times. It’s a book for the settlers here, that we let our hearts be brave.

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Dec 09 2025
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creativity, Publishers and Books, Short Fiction

Shedding Skin 2

The turn of the millennium seems, well, a millennium ago! I did so much writing then.

The short stories I wrote in the early 2000s helped me process the new field I was entering, the world of education where it intersected with at risk and vulnerable youth. As an educator, I had to grow beyond my biases and judgements, those fear-based ways of holding on. Like a snake, I stretched my jaw through writing to take in and process amazing stories of resiliency, failure, and the hard snap of systems based on monetary measurables. Thankfully, in those years I was surrounded by amazing support from Youth Opportunities Unlimited and the Boys and Girls Club.

At the turn of the Millennium, there was the Internet, and I was an early adopter. No Facebook, no Instagram or TickTock. The iPhone wasn’t out yet, and Blackberry had its simple, but brilliant, message system (remember BBMS??). The newspaper, gossip, the radio shows and 6 o’clock news on TV were our information highways. We saw the same news at the same time. We could observe our local neighbourhood, our workplace, but we weren’t linked to instant news and entertainment.

The stories I wrote came from observations. The style of telling couldn’t be the usual hero’s journey because there was so much to overcome, and sadly, losses and more losses. All the unanswered prayers.

Most of the stories were told within a short time frame, but formed by a kaleidoscope of views. Me stretching my skin to understand the whole picture, and how to present it? Through dis-connection. In the end, the patterns coalesced, the endings not endings at all. Or writing an “if only.”A skin shed, and the living carry on.

Home: 10 Short Stories is shed, at least in the first layer and available to readers through Amazon. Though that won’t be the end of it.

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May 10 2025
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creativity, fiction, illustration, Mother's Day, Uncategorized

Mother’s Day revisited with May and June

Sketches for the garden gate
by Laura Wythe

My mother and her sister were named after the months they were born in:  May and June.  Both had Alzheimer’s.  Patricia May has passed away and but my mother, Eleanor June, lived on. Now, I am given white flowers on Mother’s Day.

I wondered how a person with dementia would respond to the news that a loved one had died. I wondered how dementia might have affected the sisters in the first place. Would they still have a relationship, each in their own world?

Here’s a section of a short story from my HOME collection where June tries to take in the news that May has died.  

They say no. She is not yet beside Mother and Father. Good. Tell them that on Mothers’ Day we pin a white carnation from the vase in the church narthex onto our cardigans and then we sit in the family pew waiting for the service. The pastor will deliver homilies of two kinds. May and I discuss how we would rather wear pink or orange carnations, and so we return the white ones to the vases in the narthex and pin the coloured ones on with long hat pins. The deacon notices and kindly says that there aren’t enough coloured flowers. Would we mind trading ours for the white again? We are mortified. Mother only pins coloured carnations onto our cardigans.

Father’s Day is less complicated. We take fish and chips to the pond and share a great bottle of dark ale, wiping our greasy hands on the grassy bank, putting off our shoes and socks afterwards to dangle our legs over the edge, fishing bits of coleslaw from the Styrofoam container and tossing the limp strands onto the water, calling up the fish as though they are our friends, kicking our feet hard in tandem so that whenever the minnows do surface, we have created tidal waves for the poor things. Father would like to choke us girls for scaring the fish away, for disturbing them, yet he has no qualms about tricking the fish with worms and impaling them on hooks in the first place.

This material is recycled from previous posts. See Songs of Experience (2014) for more about the drawing. LW

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Feb 27 2018
4 Comments
drawing, illustration, Uncategorized

Two Inch Square Book

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Still Life, Pen and ink, 2″ x 2″ Laura Wythe

It was a gift from another student in a drawing class. A tiny hand made book with blank pages of handmade paper, and the cover a Guatemalan weave. What a joy! I knew I’d fill this book from the first page to the last, and I did.

For years, I took the bus. That’s a study in waiting, taking busses in my city. The two inch square book was a perfect fit for any sized purse or pocket. I carried a Staedtler pigment liner, 0.3 which never bled on the rough porous paper, or ran out. While waiting for the bus, a friend, at the doctor’s, or on a lunch break, I’d sketch.

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Waiting at the Market, Pen and ink, 2″ x 2″ Laura Wythe

It took a year to fill the book. I found that the ink bled through the pages, so I used every second page as an opportunity to the connect the dots and get abstract.

And the scenes or objects I sketched quickly took on a stylized look, inspired by wood block prints.

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Deck chairs on Bruce Street, Pen and ink on handmade paper, 2″ x 2″ Laura Wythe

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Sketch diary made in Guatemala, 2 inches square, 2011-2012, Laura Wythe

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Dec 04 2017
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art, climate change, fibre art, People and Places, Publishers and Books, Sewing Projects, textile art, Uncategorized

Stitched Illustration

I’ve always sewn clothes, made pictures, sculptures–tactile, physical objects that I could share with others pretty easily.

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The lakeshore, formerly at 76.5 metres above sea level had risen by 15 metres and was lapping at Queen Street West. From The Bones, Chapter 2, by Laura Wythe

For a number of reasons, writing has become a great creative and personal outlet for me.  But how to show and share words? Contests, blogging, writing plays and joining writing groups have worked for short fiction.

Recently I finished a novel, inspired in part by a street in Wortley Village. Tecumseh Avenue is the only native name among so many traditional English names. It took a lot of research to find out the story behind the name, and I used the presence of this First Nation man in The Bones.

The main character is Catherine Blackwood, the textile curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. She grew up on a farm next to the battlefield north of Chatham where Tecumseh died in the War of 1812. She heads back to the farm, now in Flood Zone 4, obsessed with making one last search for Tecumseh’s bones. (I’ll blog more about the Tecumseh story.)

I’m used to showing and telling what I’ve been up to. The logical thing — for me — was to make a series of illustrations and launch a book with pictures! Catherine, the textile curator, came to mind as having the perfect point of view for the illustrations.

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gathering materials for The Bones Laura Wythe

For more than 2 years, I have collected textiles–table linens, threads, and other bits and embellishments. I have pored over maps and charted the travels of the characters through a flood ravaged land. I have joined London branch of the Canadian Embroiderer’s Guild to bone up on my stitching techniques.

I have 4 months left to finish the illustrations, and literally thousands of stitches to go.

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Nov 02 2017
3 Comments
galleries, illustration, People and Places, Publishers and Books, Uncategorized

Indie Publishing

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A long time ago, in the town I grew up in, I had my first Indie publishing moment in Mr. Smith’s Canadian Lit class. I wrote the story, drew the pictures, hand printed the words, and bound the pages with red electrical tape. Pretty cool. An excellent teacher, Mr. Smith went through the pages with pencil and pointed out my not-too-numerous spelling and grammar mistakes. He whispered to me (I was a class-slacker) that I should get this book published. I thought it was.

Little did I know at the time “nurd” would be become a part of our vocabulary, and have a different spelling!

Now with online printing platforms, I can go beyond a short children’s story and print out a whole novel, and many copies! In my case, I used CreateSpace, and being a pencil and paper girl, I had a hard time until I just followed the instructions. Oh yes, and I enlisted a friend’s help!

Talking out design problems and getting the book just right was a great experience, and now it’s done. I have a BIG book.

Mind you, I also booked a venue to hold an art show in 2018 — can’t resist illustrating a novel. Deciding how to include illustrations is still to be decided. I’d like it to have some of the charm of an “old-school” book, maybe with colour plates pasted onto blank pages opposite the text, or scattered through more randomly. It won’t be hand printed, but the illustrations will be hand-made.

I’m proud to announce the release of The Bones, and will be among the small presses and indie authors at London Ontario’s Wordsfest — Southwesto Book Expo — held November 4 and 5th at Museum London. A cool start for a book.

Meet local author_landscape

 

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Jun 09 2017
2 Comments
fibre art, galleries, gardens, People and Places, Sewing Projects, textile art

Colours of the Garden: colour wrapping

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thread wrapped basket/Laura Wythe

Many of the fibre artists I meet dye their threads to make their own pallet. I haven’t tried it, except the once when I sank a skein of pearl cotton into a brew of black walnut juice.

In the cold of winter, I went to a workshop led by Nancy Latchford. She’s a fibre artist who specializes in baskets, and her baskets are amazing in size and range. We met in a workroom in the Jonathon Snell-Bancroft Gallery where we had a view of Nancy’s fibre-based work, as well as many, many amazing ceramic pieces.

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Base of basket by Laura Wythe

We started making our little baskets, first wrapping a washer for the base, then wrapping more threads over a cotton and wire core to make our coils. I’ve made slippery coils for clay for pots before, but this was new, and quite a challenge to juggle the pieces.

A huge part of the project was to choose the colours, or in my case, let the colours choose me. There was a boardroom-size table before us filled with hand-dyed cotton thread of all colours and tints. Impossible to include them all, but I tried. Red is always my favourite, but then violet, purple, orange, yellow, greens and blues took up the bulk of the project. In the dead of winter, I was thinking about June gardens.

The wrapping technique was new to me. You choose 2 or 3 colours and wrap them together around the core materials. It’s blending colours, and then as Nancy pointed out, they become further blended when the coils are bound together with yet more blends.

The basket is still a work in progress, palm-sized. The gardens, however, are in full bloom.

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Thread-wrapped basket in progress, Laura Wythe

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Mar 19 2017
4 Comments
art, fibre art, Sewing Projects, textile art, Uncategorized, Yarn

Joy of colour

It’s been a grey monotone winter, and I’ve been working on a large project with a theme of rain. More greys and damp and sombreness. Every now and again, there’s a tiny break in the grey blanket of sky, shadows, even a bit of blue. It doesn’t matter if it’s morning or night, it’s all a progression of grey.

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Detail of Sari Splendor square by Laura Wythe

Into the grey came a workshop called Indian Splendor led by Donna Funnel, hosted by the London branch of the Canadian Embroiders Guild. Step by step we were led to a guarantee of colour harmony and wonder. It really is important to trust the instructor, especially when they say, choose your colours, any colours will work.

Sari ribbon is a new material for me, and of course, the ribbons came in brilliant colours and textures. Donna also had some sari silk yarn that matched the silks but brought another layer of texture when all was done. We created a base with the ribbons, then cut and embellished. Of course, I bling-ed my project up with shiny yarns, sequins and beads–and some variegated silk thread.

So, here’s the finished project.

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Full size Sari Splendor square by Laura Wythe

Donna has used the squares in an entirely different way to create a stunningly detailed wall hanging. Simple structure, amazing results.

What a riot of colour for a dull winter’s day.

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Sep 26 2014
7 Comments
People and Places, Poetry

Song of experience

A lot of my life is spent wondering. And I wonder at my mom, how she manages living deeper and deeper in dementia. A while ago, her older sister, who also had dementia, passed away.

I wondered how a person with dementia would respond to the news that a loved one had died. I wondered how dementia might have affected the sisters in the first place. Would they still have a relationship, each in their own world?

This playful drawing came after writing a short bit of fiction about this. Sometimes drawing helps with the wondering where words fail.

Sketches for the garden gate for Song of Experience by Laura Wythe

The style of the drawing is based on  William Blake’s work and this poem:

THE GARDEN OF LOVE

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

 

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Jun 18 2013
1 Comment
People and Places, Sewing Projects

Out of Africa quilt show

Volunteering for Out of Africa quilt show arranged by the London International Quilt Festival was really cool.  My friend and I spent more time with quilts than we normally would have, and with the other volunteers and the circle of vendors around the room.

Tent hanging hand sewn by the Men of Cairo, approx 14' x 14'

Tent hanging hand sewn by the Men of Cairo, approx 12′ x 12′

A quilt, apparently, can be broadly defined as a fancy top and a back, with a batting sometimes in the middle.  At this show, there were very few, if any, quilts like the traditional ones my grandmother would make.  Almost all of these quilts from the African continent were meant to hang on the wall.  Stunning “quilts” from the Men of Cairo collective were actually tent walls, and resembled Persian carpets or mosaics. African animals, cultures, traditional and everyday life were celebrated with brilliant colours, sombre desert hues, embroidery and embellishments.

Salamander Quilt, Out of Africa show in London ON, 2013

Salamander Quilt, Out of Africa show in London ON, 2013

Detail of salamander quilt, Out of Africa, London ON, 2013

Detail of salamander quilt, Out of Africa, London ON, 2013

I didn’t get to the lecture on the African quilts, but I did meet a volunteer, Hasebenebi Kaffel who knew the subject in broader terms.  I mistook him for a member of the Men of Cairo collective.  He really works for the UK-based ACORD and has been to Cairo many times, he said.  Also a member of ACFOLA, he was at the show to volunteer his knowledge of Africa.   He told me how long ago he fled his home in Eritrea with nothing, and then ended up in front of the World Bank to deliver a paper on the importance of gender in the economics of developing countries.  Very interesting!

Alas, I did not make any purchases.  There were vendors from all over the world, but instead of getting into something new, I vowed to finish the quilt that I started 30 years ago.  I know, I’m amazed at how quickly time has passed. “The Wedding Plate” is pieced bits of fabric from projects that my sisters and I made in our teens–dresses, PJs, blouses, pot holders, whatever–and I need to finish the quilting and bind it.

It’s good that Africa came to London, for the education, inspiration, and the joy!!

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