Website Gets Facelift From a Talented Artist

For those of you who follow my blog, THANK YOU, first of all! Then a word of reassurance that you're reached the right place. Instead of receiving a notice of a new posting from Labyrinth Journeys, my name appeared instead. Aside from feeling a bit self-conscious about that, I'm excited that my website has been refreshed as an author site. With the addition of my children's book, The Power of Bread, it was time to branch out.
I invite you to visit the website and subscribe to my blog  – under the photo of Drew and me snowshoeing in New Hampshire. 

You'll notice I didn't say that I personally made the changes. Web design is as much a mystery to me as physics.  But, thankfully, I know someone who does.  

James Matthews – the exceptional editor and book designer of both my books – creates websites, among an impressive list of other talents.  James' official title is Director of Communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas. He's also a multi-media documentary artist. On his website, James says that he has "a bias toward the human-made landscape, manual processes, and the physical object." How does that translate into some of the creative work he's been engaged in for the last 15 years in Little Rock? I'll share one example and refer you to his website for a glimpse into others.

His Eviction Quilts series...

James has designed and sewn nine quilts. Each quilt represents a person or family who has been evicted from their home, belongings left by the side of the road. James pieced together a story of loss in each quilt and named it after the street where he discovered and collected the fabrics.  South Cedar Street, pictured above, features a lime green center made from a woman's dress and a man's shirt.
​The quilts have been displayed in several Arkansas museums and were awarded an Honorable Mention at the Delta 60 Exhibiton at the Arkansas Arts Center. (For a more in-depth story of James' journey to create the Eviction Quilts, you can read an article which appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.)

​In reflecting about his quilts, James told me, "...  the quilts become a sort of material archive, a way to save the soon-to-be-discarded pieces of a transitory event such as an eviction. As with all my work, the project is an attempt to get people to see their surroundings with fresh eyes."

Whether James is creating his own art or supporting the creativity of someone else, like me, his work invites us to pause, to pay attention. . .to see.

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