Simone Elizabeth Textiles

August musings: sustaining life, nurturing art, healing postpartum body, evaporating in the sun. 🌞

What a beautiful, transformative spring this has been.

A season of surrendering and becoming. So much of my time has been devoted to nurturing my daughter, learning the rhythms of motherhood, and discovering new parts of myself along the way. The days have felt both impossibly long and astonishingly fleeting.

The tending of a new life. The reshaping of my own.

As we enter summer, I’m embracing a slower pace. More listening, more trust in the unfolding. And yet, beneath it all, I can feel something stirring.

The pull toward creation is strong! Ideas are collecting. Images are forming. Threads are connecting themselves in the background. There is a quiet fire beginning to burn again.

I’m excited for what will emerge when I return to the studio, carrying everything this season has taught me. I can’t wait to share what rises from these months of transformation.

For now, I’m soaking up these precious days, knowing they too are becoming part of the work.

📸:
1. feature May/June issue!
2. Mini me
3. - partial article 🤎
4. I love smelling new blossoms, eternal life!
5. Showcase in Toronto - 🙏🏽
6. Motherhood is…
7. Dante Potato, forever loved 🕊️

My soul dog, Dante, is with the ancestors. 🕊️

I know how many of you adored his presence in my posts, and how many of our friends loved him dearly too. I share my grief.

He is a piece of me. A reflection of unconditional love. My best friend, a light in every darkness, my steady studio companion through so many seasons of life.

Words cannot express what this beloved being means to me, or the depth of love I carry for him.

I am forever grateful to have walked this life with you, sweet boy.

By my side for 14.5 years, you had been survived a coyote attack, you had cushings for several years, a dire skin flare up in 2024, and now mast cell tumours (cancer) invaded your beautiful body. You heard my whispered prayers to stay by my side until a child was in our lives. And with the same patience and devotion that defined your every day, you listened. You steadied yourself, slowing your decline, and waited until our baby came home.

And then, as if your work here was complete, you told us it was time.

I will never be ready for this loss. But there is peace in believing you are waiting for me now, just beyond the veil, held by the ancestors, whole again.

Thank you for your love. For your gentleness. For your loyalty. For every quiet moment, every comfort, every lesson in devotion.

You were never “just a dog.”
You were family. You were soul. You were home.

Our love is without end.

Run free now, my Dante.

Forever a piece of my heart.

❤️

📸 there are hundreds of photos I want to share, but I don’t have the capacity to go through them, it hurts too much. These are from my latest photo shoot, a maternity shoot with my Potato, by my bestie Jon Thank you for catching this incredible moment bb. New life synced with old.

Unlocked - forever bestie

Just a girl and her tufting. 🥰

And it has me reflecting. I know in the next couple of months I’m going to take the biggest and most special reprieve of my life - some time to convalesce and soak in the magic and love with my baby girl. I sit in wonder thinking how becoming a mom will shape my next series of art works. How the punch needle may feel different in my hands, shaping new worlds and a voice that is blossoming inside of me.

When I had taken this photo, my sweet little dog Jackie Brown had passed away the day before. I was so heartbroken and torn and at the time I didn’t feel I could cancel since the photographer was already booked through a newspaper agency. But I look at this photo and I’m reminded of my resilience, and how much my art has gotten me through major moments in my life.

I truly marvel at what is next, surging up like a phoenix… and only time will tell.

What shapes you in such a way?

Artwork: “Harmony Sings at Dusk” 2023. Part of my “Verchü and the Chronicles of the Unicorn” tapestry series.

The many faces of my art this year.

Up close, I see more than texture and thread: I see ancestors, memory, and tenderness stitched into being.

Spending time with these faces feels like a conversation across time. They ground me in my lineage while also opening me outward, connecting me to the wider diaspora of Black womanhood, and to women everywhere who carry history in their bodies.

As this year comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the voices I’ve given form, the stories I’ve already honoured, and the women who have emerged through my hands. I’m stepping into the new year ready to welcome new faces and new narratives - while deeply cherishing the ones that already exist.

This is how I listen.

This is how I remember.