I am a long thinker.

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I rub the indigo flowers, loosening the seeds and before the first frost, I harvest the leaves to dye the silk robins egg blue. I feel the grass and speak to Hashem out loud at the park, asking for rachmones, asking for my defenses to lower. I bathe the reed in the water, preparing it to be woven. I study Sefer Yetzirah for two years. I double and triple twine the forms and weave on looms big and small. I take the 49 bus for 45 minutes each way to the Beit Midrash for nine weeks. I string 1,178 handmade glass beads on the tapestry needle. We translate the Talmud, looking up each word from the page in Hebrew or Aramaic in the dictionary. I dye 1320 threads for the warp: apple green, sky blue, lavender and magenta. I meditate on the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. I draw: abstract curvilinear vessels, drooping trees, flower garlands, a shell opening and closing, stars linked together in a ring, a wheel, an architectural threshold. I ask at the seder: how can each of us stand in protection of human dignity? I seek a reflective surface: the sculpture spins silver, six winged and radial. I give time to slow processes of making and to spiritual study, to contend with what is unresolvable. 

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Craft requires being with others. We sit at the table together and cut the yarn into 3.5 inch pieces, preparing it to be woven as a cut pile textile. We sing wordless melodies. We have candle lit shabbat together. As I work and as I daven, I listen, shift, soften, and ease. In the studio, I earnestly seek intimacy, give careful attention, surrender control. I shape and am shaped in return. 

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I am a long thinker.