The twenty-six pieces of Year One comprise an alphabet of grief and joy woven together: the stories I did not expect to be written.
I began working with stitching in my painting during my fourth month of pregnancy, inspired by Japanese boro stitching that my wife Lynn introduced to me as I looked for a way to patch my maternity jeans. By the time our daughter was born, I was deeply engaged with the materials—heavy paper, watercolor, and stitching—and the process.
Year One held the birth of my daughter and the death of my wife, along with so many other firsts. Year One is the expression of my understanding of Walt Whitman’s line from Song of Myself, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
