Just hook. Any way you want.

It does not matter whether you hook fast or slow.

It does not matter if you hook patterns or your own designs.

It does not matter if you hook on your own quietly or with a group.

It just matters that you hook.

At the end of my videos I always say "You never know what you are sharing when you share rug hooking."

And I say this because nearly every week someone writes to me or pulls me aside in the studio and tells me a story. Sometimes they tell me that it helped them get through the most difficult time in their lives. Sometimes they tell me that through it they have found a friend. Sometimes they tell me that through it they have found something in themselves they never knew was there. When people talk to you like this and share their inner thoughts you listen. You take it in and it begins to change you.

I think about the spring my father died and the rug I made with him standing in his baby blue Volkswagen in front of the priests house with a cigarette in his hand and me in the car watching. Thinking even then about life. It was always my way. It was his way. That rug which now belongs to my sister helped me make sense of my grief. I sat alone with it and tears fell into it as I made it. That was a long time ago but I remember.

I also know that sometimes I have sat down at the frame angry and stood up an hour later with forgiveness in my heart. Forgiveness for myself and another. 

I have come to the frame restless and found the quiet. And I have come confused and left with things sorted out. 

For any of these things to happen I had to do the work of showing up, of using my hands and letting myself get lost in the making. At some point in the making, I would stop repeating the words in my head that I sat down with and new words would take their place. Words like soft pink, grey, cream would emerge and I would follow them. I would start thinking about what I was working on and in doing so it would remove me from the concerns I sat down with. I would still have them, no doubt, but somehow I was able to carry them differently. There are no panaceas but there are things that help us carry the load, rug hooking and making being one of them.

Spoke from my own experience, and the stories of others, I have come to deeply believe in the power of making. It changes us and it can change our lives. Whether it is through helping us build community or if it is through helping us find ourselves and our solace, it is real. I know this because people tell me so and because I have experienced it myself.

So when I say it at the end of a show I mean it with my heart. There are always people out there who need a little of what we already got. It's easy to share, and it can make a difference.