Eclipse

A 3 a.m. Utah sky, coyotes singing, & reflections the passing of seasons.

At 3 a.m. town was asleep.

The moon was beginning to disappear.

I quickly boiled water for tea, pulled on thick warm layers, and stepped outside to watch the eclipse swallow it whole. All I could hear was the wind over the Abajo mountains and the distant rythmic rumble of the wind turbines turning somewhere in the dark.

Above me, the moon was changing. Its light glowing like dyeing an ember, the blood moon.

The air was warmer than it should have been. It smelled like the start of spring, though spring is supposed to come much later here.

Right before totality, to my disbelief coyotes began to sing, And I began to cry.

Small, hot, silent tears fell down my face as their voices and songs carried across the open farmland and drifted toward me on the wind.

I wondered if they were watching too.

If somewhere out there, their eyes were lifted up toward the sky. If they noticed the moon changing above them. If someday they would tell their children about the night the moon suddenly disappeared and then returned.

And then, just like that, it was over.

The shadow passed.
The moon returned.
The world continued turning.

Winter is almost over. I don’t know how it went so fast.

It feels like only yesterday I was climbing along the rocky, barnacle and mussel covered shores of the Oregon coast, searching tidepools for treasures. I would come back soaked, with scraped bloody palms and knees, my pockets heavy with wet driftwood, sea stones, shells, and mysterious bones.

I would wade into the cold water wishing like a selkie that i could dive beneath the surface and swim beside the seals. I watched otters drifting among the kelp, wrapped in little blankets of seaweed as they snacked and napped.

Evenings were spent crabbing from the end of a dock, hauling up our heavy traps as the moon rose over the ocean, then cooking our delicious catch for dinner. For my birthday we rented a boat and maxed out our limit in a few short hours.

While I was there, my soul felt nourished by the sea.

Salt wind in my hair

Treasures hidden in tidepools

The sea keeps its secrets

There was the redwoods

I wandered among their towering trunks, wrapping my arms around them and breathing in their deep wet earthy scent. Sometimes the sheer beauty of them overwhelmed me, these tall ancient beings who have stood here for centuries.

like a child I played in their shade, I crawled through fallen logs large enough to swallow me whole. I lay beneath ferns in beds of soft moss. I examined so many different species of mushroom, I looked for critters in small creeks and searched for banana slugs and giant salamanders.

One rainy night we drove slowly up a forest service road and saw a mountain lion. Its eyes flashed bright briefly in the headlights before it slipped back into the darkness of the forest.

I got out of the truck, rain pelting me as I walked to the place where it had stood.

Its fresh tracks were pressed into the wet mud. I placed my hand inside one, as if I might understand something by doing so. as if, for just a moment, I could become the mountain lion, shedding my human skin for a feline body and learn its many secrets.

Ancient forest breath

My hands inside lion tracks

Rain soft on the moss

And then Japan.

A lifetime bucket-list trip I never truly believed would ever happen.

I spent 3 weeks wandering city streets, puzzling out signs and menus, eating as much food as I physically could, experiencing museums and quiet galleries, resting in public parks, seeing the cherry blossoms bloom, standing before temples and ancient sculptures that made me tear up without warning.

Every single day I found myself talking to the younger versions of myself, the child from 2002, middle school me, the angry highschooler, the insecure college student who dreamed about seeing this place.

Saying we did it.

We made it here.

We even saw Mount Fuji.

Somehow, impossibly, WE made it to Japan.

And now here I am again, standing in the cold, watching the full moon return

wondering how all these seasons of life seemed to move so quickly.

Soon it will be spring.

The leaves will return.
The desert will hum again with life.
The days will stretch longer into golden evenings.

I am ready for the return of the birds, the insects, the flowers and the rustling of new leaves.

Ready for the world to wake again.

The older I get, the more life feels like watching this eclipse.

One moment everything is bright and endless.

Then in an instant it’s passing behind you.

And all you can do is stand there, hoping you were paying attention while the light was here.

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Since returning from a very eventful few months of being in many different places, I’ve been doing my best at playing catch up….. responding to emails, finishing commissions, and restocking shops, all while trying to carve out some kind of time and space again for my own projects in the studio.

But there are quite a few things in the works right now that I’m excited about. (possibly some screen printed critter tea towels this summer)

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Raising Funds for Non-Profits

I’d also like to share that this year I’m bringing back something that was very important to me in the early years of my work.

For a few years I donated 5% of my website sales to nonprofits, but due to some tight finances I had to pause doing that for a while. I’m really happy to say that it’s returning this year. Times are so uncertain for all of us I want to be able to give and help while I can.

Pinebones.com

This quarter my sales will be Donated to Friends of the Boundary Waters

“Our mission is to protect the Boundary Waters and to connect people of all backgrounds to the wilderness, so that this and future generations benefit from this special place.

Friends is at the frontline in the fight against the copper-sulfide mines that have been proposed at the doorsteps of the Boundary Waters. Through mobilizing citizens and initiating legislative and legal action, we are determined to keep this toxic industry out of Minnesota.”

It feels like a meaningful way to give back to communities and organizations doing important work in the world, and to support causes that I care deeply about.

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Wholesale

Another side project that continues to slowly grow is wholesale! It has been really nice for my brain the have a source of income that doesn’t rely on the fickle instagram algorithm.

https://pinebones.faire.com

when you order through my direct link Faire takes 0% commission on my sale instead of 15% or 25% which really adds up fast.

If you’ve ever visited a shop and thought “this place would be perfect for their work,” I’d genuinely love to hear about it. Word of mouth and community recommendations have helped my work find its way into some really wonderful independent shops

And if you happen to run a shop yourself and are interested in carrying my work, feel free to reach out, I’m always happy to connect and talk!

Thank you for continuing to be here and for joining me on this creative journey. Whether you’ve been following my art for years or are just discovering my work, your support allows me to keep doing what I love, making things, exploring the world, and sharing the stories that come from it.

-with love

Holls