Remember you can “read” the cowl starting at the slightly darker stripe and reading right to left following the rows in a spiral up the cowl. Each V-stitch represents a color of wildflower, a black color indicates the end of one day.
What a month spent living in Joshua Tree National Park. I have seen such beautiful landscapes, flora, and fauna I will have inspiration for years. I was able to finish three pieces during my stay but I have so many more that I am planning. Stay tuned for updates.
Hall of Horrors Shawl: Hall of Horrors in Joshua Tree National Park is made of several rock formations with scrambling boulders, small slot canyons, and beautiful desert scenery. The nooks and crannies of these outcroppings are great to get lost in, finding surprising places to cool from the desert heat.
Ladder-backed Woodpecker wristwarmers: These brightly colored birds nest in the desert trees of Joshua Tree National Park. Their flashy red crowns and black and white speckled plumage demand attention as they drill and fly around the Joshua trees.
Colors of wildflowers I saw in Joshua Tree National Park in March 2026: An abundance of colors peppers Joshua Tree National Park in March. I recorded the color of wildflowers I saw during my month-long stay in the park and knitted them into this cowl. An exercise in data visualization that not only records the colors, but the days spent in the beautiful desert.
Notes on this project:
You can “read” the cowl starting at the slightly darker stripe and reading right to left following the rows in a spiral up the cowl. Each V-stitch represents a color of wildflower, a black color indicates the end of one day.
You can see several trends, at the beginning of March there were a lot of yellow flowers blooming like creosote and brittlebush as well as purples of purple mat and chia. By the end of the month the hotter colors of beavertail cactus, hedgehog cactus, chuparosa, ocotillo, and paintbrush began to dominate. Ubiquitous throughout the month were orange globemallow, blue heliotrope, and purple desert lavender. The white and green Joshua tree blossoms were abundant as well, you can see many instances of white and light green together as young and old blossoms often graced the same Joshua tree. Don’t miss the “cheater” colors I knit in of non-wildflowers like the bright green lichen or the lovely glowing blue juniper berries.
This visual representation of the colors of the desert will always be a better reminder of my time as artist-in-residence at Joshua Tree National Park than any of my journals I wrote during my stay.
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photo by Sergiy Galyonkin |
I am so excited to have been chosen as Artist-in-Residence for Joshua Tree National Park for 2026. I will spend the month of March living in the park getting inspiration from the Mojave and Colorado desert landscapes. Get ready for more nature inspired textile art!
In the meantime, here are a few of my past desert inspired wearable textile art:
Sandstone Cliff, created as artist-in-residence at Capitol Reef National Park
Salt Flat Sunrise, from Bonneville Salt Flats
Indian Paintbrush, created as artist-in-residence at Black Rock Desert National Conservation Area
Great Basin Sky, created as artist-in-residence at Great Basin National Park
West Desert Hood, from Utah’s West Desert
Photo: Joshua Tree National Park by Christopher Michel, Creative Commons
I grew up in and around Utah Lake and I am excited about how far it has come, it is more clean and healthy than it has been in a century. Come see the whole exhibit, it's up until September 27.
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A new article about my art came out today in 15 Bytes, an e-newsletter about the arts in Utah. Written by David Pace, it outlines my art and practice.
Have you subscribed to the 15 Bytes e-newsletters? It's free. Sign up today to keep up with the latest art news in the Beehive State: visual, performing, literary and everything in between.
The Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art opened last month where you can see my wearable art Fireweed, created during my Glacier National Park residency. I am excited to have a piece in this year’s exhibition!
Lovely exhibit at the UVU Museum of Art on the Utah Arts and Museums 125th Anniversary. It highlights its 125 years of collecting art and so much more. And I am so honored to have one of my works from their collection on display alongside some of my heroes and mentors in the art and museum world. If you have a chance, go see it. It’s up through March 15.
Shown: Species of Concern: San Rafael Cactus, 2017, hand-knit linen paper. From the State of Utah Alice Merrill Horne Art Collection.
You can see some of my Glacier artwork from my residency last year in an exhibition this summer at the Brigham City Museum. The exhibition titled Intersections: Utah Fiber Art Exhibit will open on July 6. I will be showing three bird inspired shawls. This one I finished just a few months ago inspired by Clark's Nutcracker and another Glacier inspired bird, the Calliope Hummingbird (which I showed in my last entry). I also will be showing a work I did inspired by the Redwing Blackbird from my Artist-in-Residency at Great Basin National Park (see below).
From the pattern: Clark’s Nutcracker is a key element in a complex but fragile ecosystem in Glacier National Park. These birds rely on the nutritious pine nuts of whitebark and limber pines. But they also germinate the trees by cacheing the seeds and forgetting about them. With climate change, the pine trees are dying out and with them might also be this industrious and striking bird. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park, Montana.
When I was in Glacier National Park last summer for my residency, I was lucky enough to spot a Calliope Hummingbird off the porch of my cabin on Lake McDonald. The brilliant fuschia-colored throat and teal body were eye-catching. So I knit a wing-span shawl inspired by that hummingbird. I have started publishing the patterns I create from Glacier as I finish them, so this one is on Ravelry now too.
From the pattern: Glacier National Park, take note of its vibrant gorget. A gorget is a patch of colored feathers found on the throat of male hummingbirds. Gorgets are typically iridescent. and the Calliope sports a beautiful fuschia patch that can be seen even when he is flitting about the park. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
I finished a couple more artworks from my residency in Glacier this summer. I have a few more I would like to get done before the two presentations I have in February and March. I will be talking about my residency to the Salt Lake Knitting Guild and the Utah Surface Design Group. I am excited to share my work but a little stressed to get as many projects done as possible. The truth is that I had so much inspiration from this summer that I will be knitting Glacier works for a few years.
This is Avalanche Chute, a fun modular scarf. Info from the pattern: Avalanches send tons of snow ripping down steep mountainsides. They follow the jagged avalanche-carved valleys made over millenia. These chutes are stripped bare of vegetation allowing new tender shoots to come up every year, feeding the diverse wildlife in Glacier National Park. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
I recently finished three works inspired by Glacier National Park:
The stunning turquoise at Grinnell Lake in Glacier National Park is created from the rock flour accumulated from Grinnell Glacier. Rock flour is very light, and stays suspended in the water. When the light hits the surface the silt distorts the wavelengths of light, reflecting back more of the green and blue end of the spectrum; making beautiful turquoise ripples when a pebble is dropped at its edge. And I plan to have the pattern available this month. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
Thanks to my sister for the test knit on this piece.
I mentioned before that I wanted to savor all the time spent at the Park in June 2023. This meant consciously looking, observing and being present for what I was seeing and doing. The result is a unique work of wearable art that has meaning to me. The other pictures show a few close-ups and a better view of the legend to read the scarf; which is read from right to left (the way knitting is worked), with my first day being the bottom ridge and my last day the top ridge. If you look closely you can see the little yellow bit in the middle of the night where I woke to a mouse being snapped in a trap and I had to deal with it at 2:30 in the morning.
But you can also see a lot of wildlife that I saw and various activities I did during the month. The cool thing about the scarf is the overall patterns that emerge. I really tried to have good sleep hygiene and you can tell with the big block of blue on the right side. And that I usually ended my days with a lot of knitting and a bit of reading.
I have been back from Glacier for two weeks now and have been under water getting caught up from work. Hopefully my Instagram updates helped give a sense of what a wonderful opportunity was. I was able to experience so much of the park, hiked a lot, knit a lot, a got so much inspiration I will be knitting my ideas for years to come.
I was able to finish four works while I was living in Glacier:
Green Lacewings have little veins criss-crossing their wings which makes them incredibly flexible. The veins allow lacewings to fly forwards, backwards, and side to side. This dexterity makes them efficient hunters of pesky insects like mosquitoes and gnats. These delecate small hunters can be found all over Glacier National Park in the summer months, making outdoor life a little more comfortable. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
The view of the Livingston Mountains Range from the east side of Lake McDonald is spectacular. The soaring green peaks at the height of summer are one of the most photographed vistas in Glacier National Park, with Mt. Cannon taking center stage. Be sure to wrap up because even in summer, mountain viewing in this part of the world can be chilly. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
The Kootenai referred to Glacier National Park as Ya·qawiswitxuki, meaning “the place where there is a lot of ice.” Although the park is named after its famous glaciers, with global warming, all these glaciers will be gone within our lifetime. Jackson Glacier shows more signs of shrinkage every year with scratches of brown earth seen coming through the thinning ice more and more. This artwork and pattern was produced as Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park.
And I have started so many more. Here are just a few:
Concept for Lake Macdonald Shawl
I am so late posting on my blog but I have landed in Glacier National Park as Artist-in-Residence. I have been here about 5 days now and have another three weeks to go. I have already created two works and seen some amazing landscapes. I will keep trying to post the works I create but Instagram really is where the day-to-day stuff is posted.
Spring Puddle
I am in a new exhibition called Circles of Influence coming up this June. All work I created was within my genre of interpreting nature that can be worn or used. But the twist is that me and all the other artists are inspired by circles.Here are some of the pieces that can be seen at the exhibition at the Main Salt Lake Library. Everything from a spring puddle to mirabilite mounds to seedpod vessels. All of the art pieces have patterns on Ravelry if you want to create one yourself. Or you can buy my pieces too.
Go and support the artists and exhibition at the reception on June 24. I won’t be there because I will be in Glacier National Park in the middle of my Artist-in-Residency. But all the artists in the exhibition are pretty amazing and unique. If you happen to be in Salt Lake City this summer, it’s a must see (and it will be on display during the Utah Arts Festival while you are already downtown).
Circles of Influence Art Reception
Saturday, June 24, 2023 AT 4 PM – 5:30 PM
Salt Lake City Public Library
Artwork by Virginia Catherall, Sheryl Gillilan, Rebecca Klundt, Jaye Rieser, Kandace Steadman, and Camille Wheatley - Exhibit runs from June 23 to Aug 4, 2023.
