My interview on the Arts Ably podcast is up! Diane and I talked about how my artistic practices in music, writing, and embroidery shift with my ME/CFS and disability.
Tag Archives: writing
The Visceral Self Writing Intensive
In April I started a 12-week writing intensive called The Visceral Self with Jeannine Ouellette of Writing in the Dark over on Substack. This intensive was a bit more intense than I anticipated and made me realize that I really need to do things at my own speed. I started off participating fully but had trouble keeping up with the extra reading, and then participating in the comment section fell by the wayside, then I had an infection that meant writing and reading weren’t possible at all for a couple weeks so I had to accept that just doing the main exercises on my own time was all I could manage. I felt that I was missing out by posting things late and not really participating in the comments, but my disability means I have to choose what works for me both physically and cognitively.
Continue readingMonthlyish Update: Getting Guts in Order (late Sept to early Nov)
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:

Gillian Blekkenhorst started with a trachea and expanded their piece from there.
website: https://blekkenhorst.ca/
Twitter: @gblekkenhorst
Webinar: The Invisible Made Visible
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

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.
Continue readingSharp Notions pre-orders, news, & launches
The date of the official launch of Sharp Notions: Essays on the Stitching Life, approaches! It’s out on October 10th, but you can preorder it now. Pre-ordering has become very important in publishing, so doing so will help the longevity and success of the book.

A Book, A Card, An Aria, A Teaching
My contributor copies of Sharp Notions arrived and it is a stunningly gorgeous book. It’s hefty and printed on full colour glossy stock.

tethered by fluid and ligaments (2023)
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.

Unlike some of my previous symptomatology pieces, my liver issues haven’t been resolved during the stitching of this piece. . . .
Continue readingA Cover, A Critique, A Map, A Mention
Sharp Notions Cover Reveal
The cover for the forthcoming anthology, Sharp Notions: Writing From The Stitching Life, was revealed in February, and it features my embroidery, she breathed!

Jan-Oct 2022 Creative Things & Forthcoming Work
I’m still catching up with posting about all my activities, so here’s what I’ve been up to since January 2022. More interviews and some exciting forthcoming work.
All the 2021 Things
The past two years have been extremely full and my body needed a fair bit of down time. I’m slowly playing catch up with my blog so here’s all the 2021 things!
Continue reading