around the time that my younger brother started kindergarten, my mother decided she needed a creative outlet of her own, beyond meatloaf and bedtime stories. i remember coming home to find the downstairs bathtub filled with long, skinny sticks soaking in water to soften them so my mother could make baskets. there was also the collage period when the dining room table was covered in colored bits of paper from my mother’s art class. eventually, she volunteered to help make a raffle quilt to raise money for our elementary school. and that, i think, sealed the deal.