How the Universe Kicked My Butt ...With Love

Welcome to The Fold. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and pull up a chair. There's plenty of room at this table. Algorithms, trolls, likes, little red numbers and dinging bells? Not right now. Pictures and stories? Yes.

I'm really glad you're here.

In this issue:

• Workin' the Cattle
• Love Letters, Delivered Obliquely
• Your Free Gift: a Love Letter from You to You

Workin' The Cattle

Winter-yellow grass. Warm sunrise on dots of snow. A pervading hum.

Workin' The Cattle is a quilt I made inspired by the Jentel artist residency in Wyoming. Jentel is on an idyllic piece of land surrounded by ranches. When I was there, the neighboring ranchers were "workin' the cattle". I didn't find out exactly what that means, but it was the source of a continuous, low-level mooing in the distance. Read more about the process behind this quilt on my Patreon blog (part 1, part 2).

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To purchase Workin' The Cattle for $675:

Contact Caroline at Cerulean Gallery by phone: (214) 564 1199 or email: caroline@theceruleangallery.com

Love Letters, Delivered Obliquely

I try to be a good person. I try to meet the world with empathy and compassion, try to consider other people's perspectives before giving them the side-eye. I try, but I don't always succeed.

Recently I took myself to a hotel for a two-day work retreat (very productive, and coincidentally, the same two days as a winter storm). While enjoying the complimentary breakfast, I overheard the desk clerk deliver a rant about ...things I won't detail here. Suffice it to say, our views on The Way Things Are don't match up.

Reader, I judged. Hard. Then I went back to my room, packed up (it was the end of my stay), and prepared to head out. When I returned to the front desk, I saw these:

Y'all, the desk clerk, as in the person I was judging a second ago, made these. They're books with the pages folded over to form words and other shapes. These ones were all Valentine-themed. She showed me pictures of other ones she made. (I asked her if she had an Etsy store or anything, but she said she gets so much work by word of mouth that she chooses not to advertise.)

I heard the Universe whispering in my ear, "Way to go, Judgie McJudgerface. See what happens when you pass judgement against another person? We turn around and kick you in the butt. Metaphorically. With love."

Love letter received, Universe.

Speaking of love letters, I want to tell you about this fantastic ceramicist I just started following. Her name is Naomi Clement, and you can see her work on her website and Instagram. Naomi gave me permission to share this from a recent newsletter:

And Now... Your Free Gift.

To thank you for taking a chance on this new chapter with me, I've attached a love letter. It's from me to you, but really, it's from you to you. Instructions for your Self-Celebration Zine are on page 2 of the file. Click the link below to download and print it.

​How Do I Love Me zine.pdf​

Again, I'm so glad you're here. See you again next month.
​xoxo Sarah A.