Category Archives: lit

Monthlyish Update: Getting Guts in Order (late Sept to early Nov)

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Note: This has been cross-posted on my ko-fi. There are a few other monthly updates there if you would like to read back a few months.

Webinar Report

Another monthly-ish update and another very full month. The main creative work on my plate was teaching a webinar for CHASE Medical Humanities about the visualization process I use to create my symptomatology pieces as well as how to use the poetic technique of homophonic translation to re-vision and re-own dense scientific texts.

It felt good to stretch my teaching muscles again. I’ve been teaching in some capacity since my late teens—music, yoga, and meditation—but had to stop when I got sick in 2015. Despite an ME/CFS crash the day before, I was well enough to present my webinar and the par­ticipants seemed to enjoy and get a lot out of the work. A few people even shared their symptomatology image/test pieces on social media. Here are a few:

crayon drawing of a body with photocopied esophagus, awkward poem and a bunch of triangles

Gillian Blekkenhorst started with a trachea and expanded their piece from there.

website: https://blekkenhorst.ca/

Twitter: @gblekkenhorst

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Webinar: The Invisible Made Visible

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I’m teaching a free webinar with CHASE Medical Humanities in the UK on Thursday, 26 October 2023, 5:30pm UK time, 10:30 am SK time. I’ll be leading participants through my process for creating both the visual and textual aspects of my symptomatology pieces. I’m very excited about it!

You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-invisible-made-visible-a-visualization-writing-workshop-with-lia-pas-tickets-726765173197

An outline of a naked woman is embroidered on linen in the same bone white colour as the linen. She stands legs together, her right hand covering her groin, her left hand, palm up, extended slightly to her side. She looks to the right. Her entire body except for her belly is covered in intricate markings representing different neurological sensations. Her face is a mask of green lines, feathery grey lines cover her shoulders and chest. There is a thick band of intricate burgundy stitching around her waist. Her forearms and hands are covered in thick blue undulant lines. Her right leg has bands of burgundy along the muscles, with small dots around them. Her inner left leg has a thick line of blue running up it, with thin branches spreading towards her outer leg.

This webinar is open to all, not just people in CHASE institutions. For the institution question in the registration I usually put n/a, and my position as independent artist.

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tethered by fluid and ligaments (2023) 

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I have completed my liver embroidery. It’s another large piece, H 15″ x W 21″ (38 × 53 cm). I stitched it from 20 June 2022 to 5 June 2023. I’ve titled it tethered by fluid and ligaments. 

A red & purple organza liver basted onto grey linen. The biliary system with all its branches between the two layers of organza is filled with a bilious green. There are small yellow beads on the biliary system inside the smaller lobe. There are white beads sewn on the narrow end of the top organza liver. An arched T shape filled with tight crisscrossing stitches in thick off-white thread separates the large & small lobes of the liver and curves over the top. There are various blocks of text stitched in light grey single strand thread around the image.They read: What roots grow in us. Branch through our landscapes. In love plexuses. a curvature borne. between what is held & what must be held carefully. fleshy beasts tethered. By fluid and ligaments. Such a gentle embrace. Beneath our skin. Here is the thing I broke & then repaired with brightness. Laid open. The spells it holds. A language spoken. Between boughs & flesh. this golden ingot. This tailed beast. And its viscous song. What a miracle these spaces within us. Are what make us whole. What offertory our bodies. The proper invocation of flesh. Placed on the ground. Hosts on tongues. Fleshy language. Each thing precious in its own decay.

Unlike some of my previous symptomatology pieces, my liver issues haven’t been resolved during the stitching of this piece. . . .

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Upcoming Anthology Publication: In Corpore Sano

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I have reached a point in my recovery from ME/CFS that means I am able to write again! ME/CFS is a neuro-immune disease and some of the symptoms include brain fog and cognitive fatigue. When I first got ill in 2015 I was unable to read or write for any length of time because it would utterly exhaust me. I’m very happy to say that I can now read and write with relative ease again.

Most of my writing these days is in the form of journaling, but earlier this year I submitted some of my embroidery work to an anthology about “challenged bodies” and creative work. As part of the In Corpore Sano anthology I was asked to write about my experience of being a creative person living with a debilitating illness and wrote a fairly long essay about that as well as the autobiographical and therapeutic nature of my embroidery work.  Continue reading →

GUSH anthology launch in Saskatoon!

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There will be a Saskatoon launch of GUSH: menstrual manifestos for our times (edited by Tanis MacDonald, Rosanna Deerchild, and Ariel Gordon with me as one of the contributors) at McNally Robinson on July 17, 2018, at 7pm.

This Saskatoon launch for the Frontenac House multi-genre anthology of writing about menstruation by more than 100 menstruators and former menstruators will feature readings by five of the contributors: Erica Violet Lee, Jeanette Lynes, Yvette Nolan, Brenda Schmidt, and co-editor Tanis MacDonald. All are welcome to attend! This is one of several launch events for the #bloodygreat anthology that are happening across Canada this year.

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