The news is bad. Images from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami are everywhere. I have to look and then look away, like a traffic accident on the side of the road. So much loss, so much tragedy, so much devastation, and so much fear of what is to come.

Things have been difficult here on the home front, too. My twelve-year-old daughter has had a persistent headache now for over two weeks. We’ve been to her family doctor, a neurologist, a chiropractor, she’s taken a boatload of big drugs and still no relief. My husband and I have been playing tag team. He works one day, I work the next. The good news is that the MRI she had on Saturday was normal. Phew. The bad news is that her head still hurts.

So how does one keep making art?

Well, I’m very thankful that I’m at the part of my process that doesn’t require much creative thought. I’m just ironing fabric on to my panels before I stitch them. I don’t think I could be creative right now.

But images and thoughts still bubble up. I was just looking at some of the photos of debris of homes, cars, people’s belongings. There was a mixture of bright colors, plastics I assume, and it looked like an inpenetrable tangle of multi-colored thread, strewn across the landscape. Someday soon I might be able to talk about these disasters using my visual vocabulary.

In the meantime, I keep working. I have a deadline, after all. And my heavy heart keeps time.