I hate Psalm 23.
so of course, I made art about it.
Rituals for Uncertainty, Sculpture: Found fence post, found quilt top with hand-embroidered text, spray paint, 54"h x 3.5"w x 30"deep, 2022
“I am interested in the point at which labor becomes untenable, where grief and calamity take hold.” - From my Artist Statement
It is no surprise that research has found mental health benefits in repetitive, haptic (dealing with touch) craft practices such as knitting, crochet, and hand embroidery. These meditative processes calm the nervous system.
Petting a cat lowers your blood pressure after only 20 minutes.
Ritual and Repetition are powerful allies in a peaceful and contemplative life.
“We can define rituals as symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world. They transform being-in-the-world into a being-at-home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space; they render time habitable. They even make it accessible, like a house. They structure time, furnish it.” - The Disappearance of Rituals - Byung-Chul Han
Hand embroidery, for me, calms me. Even better yet, the practice of slow stitching opens up a wide space in my interior life. It helps me hold the big questions of life. It helps me hold my big questions about life. (Something I have been doing more of as I find myself in middle life.)
While we were still in the thick of plague times, I was making these fiber artworks about anxiety (induced by the hellscape of COVID) and family rituals. They were flags. Made from a disassembled (years earlier), double-knit polyester quilt. They are covered in camouflage text made using HUNDEREDS of French knots.
My friend Shannon, from The Rewilded Life here on Substack, makes a cameo in this video, which shows me disassembling the quilt.
This quilt sat undone for years before I picked up the pieces after COVID and began to translate my and my family’s fears, anxieties, and rituals onto the surface.
Rituals for Uncertainty
Rituals for Uncertainty is a two-sided soft sculpture consisting of a found fence post and a flag with hand-stitched text on both sides; one side the verbal affirmations we say to our children during our bedtime routine, and the other a selection from the 23rd Psalm.
Hate might be too strong a word. But I really dislike the 23rd Psalm.
Mostly, because it is the one everyone knows. When horror or catastrophe happens in the movies, there goes one character (at least) muttering “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”. It is a cultural touchstone.
Even non-Christians can probably recite Psalm 23. In their sleep…
With the depth, poetry, variety, and creativity found in the scriptures, why don’t we expand our repertoire? Why is this the Psalm trotted out in calamities, both collective and personal? Can we get past the first two sentences to the meat of the text that I adore, “ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” (vrs. 6)
Here is where I eat my words….
Even as I loathe this Psalm, when I worked on this piece, its words of comfort found their way onto one side. But first, the flip side…
Rituals for Uncertainty was made in 2022. At this time, anxiety from the pandemic was still ferociously present. Earlier in the life of our family (2017/2018), my daughter was plagued by night terrors. She would wake up screaming. With no one able to calm her.
In response, we started to say daily affirmations before bed.
Jesus loves me.
Mom and Daddy love me.
God made my body.
God made my body to work right.
I am safe.
I am loved.
God is never far from me.
Jesus is always with me
These affirmations are embroidered on one side of the flag textile piece.
It was an attempt to archive a vital ritual within our family. Like affirmations fluctuating in usefulness, the text is camouflaged within the bright patterns of the quilt. Some days, saying the affirmations was just routine practice.
Other days, they were a lifeline.
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what text should live on the other side.
So I began to think about what rituals brought me comfort in a sea of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Journaling. Morning Pages. Free association writing. Written prayers.
Whatever you call them, this practice of putting pen to paper was a big part of my life.
So I began to flip through my journal from the past two years (2020 - 2022). And what did I see…. Bits of Psalm 23.
Surely I will DWELL in the house of the Lord.
I shall not want.
You INDEED are my shepard.
Mercy SHALL follow me.
I will DWELL.
In my free association, that hopeful passage had popped up over and over, like little sprouts of green. It was the bit about DWELLing that got me.
What does it mean to dwell in a place?
In a place not your own? To make a place one’s own?
With a long, inviting table. With colorful linens and art on the walls.
What does it mean to DWELL in the house of the Lord? What dwelling could contain His goodness anyway? Does He come to dwell in my place already?
“Nachbar, neighbour…bouen, to build… The old word bauen, which says that man is insofar as he dwells, this word buen, however, also means at the same time to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for, specifically to till the soil, to cultivate the vine. “ Building, Dwelling, Thinking” – Martin Heidegger
As artist and mother, I am both archivist and field hand, creating studies in the accretion of domestic life and cataloging its labors. Rituals for Uncertainty is one such attempt to map my familial life, with it’s intimate rituals often unknown to the outside world.
What are the rituals of your home?
Elusive Balance | Group Traveling Exhibition
Presented by Iowa Artist/Mother Group
Location: Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Ave, Ames, IA
Exhibition Dates: July 21st - August 9th, 2025
Public Closing Reception: Saturday, August 9, 2 - 5 pm
“Elusive Balance” is a traveling exhibition from July 21 - August 9, 2025, at Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Ave, Ames, IA. This group exhibition explores the challenges of finding balance within artist and mother/caregiver identities. In an effort to be inclusive of the family needs that coincide with making work, there will be a family-friendly closing reception on Saturday, August 9, from 2-5 pm.
Featured Iowa Artist/Mothers include: Amenda Tate, Kelly Devitt, Catherine Reinhart, Allison Rowe, Jill Wells, Ramona Muse Lambert, Kay Irelan, Stephanie Brunia, Hope Spragg, Emily Jalinsky, Sheena Daugherty, Alex Ackerman, Jamie Elizabeth Hudrlik, Genevra Daley, Emily Newman, Kristin M Roach, Alicia Wilkinson, Mirzam Perez, Akwi Nji, Astrid Hilger Bennett, Julia Franklin, Lauren A. Ross, Larassa Kabel, Bailey Fry-Schnormeier.
See you all there!