2026 Update
Hello friends,
My 2011 Art Quilt - A cycle of butterflies
It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, and I feel it’s time to share where I’ve been—and why I’ve been so quiet. Like every good journey (and perhaps a little like Frodo returning to the Shire), I’ve found myself changed by the road I’ve travelled, but finally ready to reconnect.
When I started 2025 I was already undertaking an exciting but potentially overwhelming new challenge as a teacher, which it absolutely turned out to be. Then, in July, I experienced a tragedy. I was faced with the complete loss of my day-to-day reality and what remained of my childhood innocence. It goes without saying that I was completely unprepared for such an upheaval. Even now, it still seems almost surreal. Grief, responsibility, and the slow work of piecing life back together became my new normal.
This eroded my creative world too. I just couldn’t find the mental space and energy needed to make or do anything, let alone tell anyone what was happening, for which I hope you will forgive me. With that creative apathy came clutter. Not an immediate hoarder’s tower, but a slow gradual drift of stuff encroaching on my art space, and what started as a dandruff of sticky notes, soon turned into a shroud of all the things I couldn’t deal with at the time - art equipment without a forever home, piles of paper full of half inspired ideas; and then bags, boxes, jumpers, gardening tools.... a pile of what I couldn’t let go. It was all as buried and hidden as I felt I needed to be. Art imitated life.
Image from my 2011 Art Quilt
However, I’ve finally found myself in a season of letting go. Bit by bit, I’m sorting through the remnants—releasing what no longer fits, keeping what feels true, and allowing myself to imagine something new.
It’s bittersweet. When I started my art journey as a quilt artist, my favourite creation included a poem I wrote in 2011 which asks: “When will I shed the careful cocoon and emerge in colours I choose?” I had no idea how prophetic that quilt would become. It’s the perfect metaphor for this season: shedding old skin, piecing together a new life from what remains, and discovering that the result can be even more colourful, intentional, and beautiful than before.
I am standing in much wiser more authentic shoes now as I let it all go and start agin. My art space is at last becoming a calm, inviting, playful, and functional space once again. My business is shifting as I let go of the pressure to feed the social media beast and my 2026 projects will be deeply personal.
The Colours I Choose - detail from my 2011 Art Quilt
If you’re reading this, thank you for being a continued part of my community. I know I’m not alone in the experience of having my world changed forever in ways I did not want, nor ask for, but my hope is that these words, as others did for me, provide even small comfort and courage for others to reconnect, to let go of what no longer serves you, to shed old skin and to emerge in the colours you choose.
With warmth and gratitude,
Monique
Happy New Year!