As I cleaned out my artist-in-residence studio at Mulranny Arts, I found myself pausing to reflect on what this residency has meant to me. This was my second residency, and although I grew through last year’s experience, something much deeper happened this year. Somewhere along the way, I had what I can only describe as an epiphany—a moment when the direction of my artwork suddenly became clearer.

I arrived in Mulranny on August 1 with a plan. I had definite goals and ideas in mind. I had begun learning bookbinding, fascinated by the stitches, the structure, and the process of building something by hand. I wanted to transfer my photographs of Mulranny onto fabric for book covers, experiment with different papers, and incorporate slow stitching and embroidery. I thought I knew where I was going. I have always loved building components in my seed bead work. There is something deeply satisfying about taking thread and tiny pieces of material and, stitch by stitch, creating something that did not exist before. My work has always been technical, deliberate, and constructed. Bookbinding felt familiar in that way. It was another kind of building.

When I arrived, I began making books, primarily using the Coptic stitch, an ancient binding technique dating back to the 2nd century and associated with the Coptic tradition of Egypt. I was happily focused on stitches, structure, and the mechanics of putting a book together.

Then I talked with Cheryl. Cheryl has been a true mentor to me since the beginning of our friendship, and she suggested something that, at first, felt like a very big leap. Why not branch out and begin “filling” the books? Collage. Handmade papers. Stitching. Found objects. Paint. She encouraged me to simply dive in and create.

And so I did. At first, cautiously. Then, little by little, something began to loosen inside me. Within a few days, I was no longer thinking so much about whether something was right or wrong. I was experimenting. Layering. Stitching. Painting. Tearing paper. Adding things simply because I loved the way they felt together.I was beginning to feel free. Collage opened a door. I loved the unexpected conversations between materials—the softness of fabric beside paper, the quiet irregularity of a found object, the line of a stitch crossing a painted surface. I began to see the book not simply as something to construct, but as a place to wander. A place to collect. A place to remember. A place to let the landscape, my photographs, my hands, and my imagination come together. And suddenly, I realized that perhaps the most important part of this residency was not learning how to make a book. It was learning to let go of the plan.

Mulranny has a way of doing that. There is something magical about this place—the wildness of the landscape, the shifting light over Clew Bay, the stones, seaweed, moss, weathered wood, and all the small treasures revealed when you slow down enough to notice them. Mulranny Arts itself seems to pulse with creativity. Ideas live in the rooms, in the conversations, in the landscape, and in the people who gather here. I feel as though I have only just opened the door to a new part of my creative journey. I came to Mulranny with a plan. I am leaving with curiosity. And perhaps that is the greatest gift of all.

Thank you, Cheryl, for encouraging me to take that leap—to step outside what I thought I knew and discover what might be waiting on the other side. And thank you for creating Mulranny Arts, such a magical and generous place where creativity has room to breathe, wander, and grow. I leave Mulranny with more than the work I created. I leave with a new way of seeing. And the feeling that something new has just begun.