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A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter called me just as I was pulling into the driveway after our last cross-country meet of the season. I couldn’t take her FaceTime because I was driving, but I called her back ten minutes later. She was smiling when she answered, a little hesitant but glowing in that unmistakable way that only comes when someone’s life is about to change. She told me she was getting married. I knew it was coming.
In that moment, time both sped up and slowed down. I sat in the car for a long minute after we hung up, feeling both proud and stunned. There’s something about hearing those words from your child that rearranges you. I thought about all the small moments that built up to this one, all the years of trying to guide and love and protect her, and how quickly it all folds into memory. Then, like most artists do, my mind went to making. What could I create for her that would feel meaningful, not forced? Something that spoke quietly but carried love in every fiber.
At first, I thought about a painting. But it didn’t feel right. This was her moment, and I wanted the gift to carry her colors, her textures, her tone. I already have a very cool gift I am making for her and her groom. But how can I honor her? Then, I thought about silk. The way it holds light. The way dye moves through it like breath. I could make her bridal party a set of hand-made small treasures, hand-dyed scarves, a silk bag for rings or jewelry, maybe even a scrunchie or bag scarf. Everything dyed with botanicals, natural, made slowly by hand. That felt right.
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As I thought through the process, gathering plants from my garden, mapping color palettes from what grows here in Nebraska, creating soft golds, browns, and muted yellows from the leaves of fall, I started to imagine the rhythm of it. The harvesting, the soaking, the waiting. The patient transformation from plant to pigment to fabric. It’s the kind of work that requires stillness. You can’t rush it. You have to listen and let the process unfold on its own time.
And that’s when the irony hit me. Here I was, planning a series of slow, intentional, almost meditative creations, at the exact moment my life was anything but slow. I was wrapping up the Turkey Trot race that I direct each year, organizing an awards banquet and murder mystery for our cross-country team, planning a 24-hour marathon event, launching the Muse Under Siege course, finishing a journal series, cleaning up the yard before winter, trying to get the studio and woodshop ready for colder days. The list felt endless. The word “stillness” wasn’t even in the same galaxy.
But the idea of slow art wouldn’t leave me. It kept returning like a whisper. I think that’s because slow art, at its heart, is more than just about pace, it’s about presence. It’s about attention. It’s the opposite of multitasking; it’s the art of singular focus. When you let yourself work at the speed of breath instead of the speed of a deadline, something shifts. You begin to notice again.
Created by MidJourney with a custom Tio moodboard
As I revisited natural dyeing and printing techniques, I found myself diving into the quiet worlds of people who live this way. Artisans who grow their own indigo, who let their dye pots steep for weeks, who paint with earth pigments ground by hand. That led back to Nihonga, the Japanese tradition of painting with natural minerals and crushed stone. Makoto Fujimura, whose writing and work I’ve admired for years, often speaks of Nihonga as an act of prayer, a slow, devotional practice of layering crushed rock and gold and pigment until something transcendent emerges. It’s the kind of art that humbles you. The artist has to slow down to the rhythm of the materials.
There’s something in that discipline that feels necessary right now. Modern life trains us to produce faster, scroll quicker, react instantly. But the brain wasn’t designed for constant acceleration. Neuroscience shows that slowness, focused, mindful engagement with a single sensory process, recalibrates the nervous system. When we slow down, the prefrontal cortex (the seat of decision-making and attention) quiets, and our parasympathetic system activates. Our breathing deepens, cortisol drops, and creativity opens. The act of slow making is not just an artistic luxury; it’s a neurological reset.
So maybe making these silk pieces for my daughter isn’t just about gifting her something beautiful. Maybe it’s about practicing presence myself, about choosing to be rooted even when life refuses to slow down. The irony becomes the lesson: we don’t wait for stillness to arrive; we create it.
I’ve started collecting leaves from my yard, maple, linden, crabapple, ginkgo and many others. Each one will yield its own quiet hue. I label the samples, sketch little notes, record how long they soak, what mordant works best. It’s all very methodical, but it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like listening. The process invites me to notice small things: how some leaves stain the silk differently depending on which side faces down, how the fall air smells faintly metallic in the morning, how color blooms differently when the pot is still versus when it simmers.
Slow art teaches patience, but more than that, it teaches reverence. It reminds you that beauty takes time, and that time is what gives it meaning. When I imagine my daughter and her friends wearing those scarves, small swatches of color born from this patch of earth, I think about how love is like that. It’s made from small gestures, quiet acts, and time. You can’t rush love any more than you can rush dye to take to fabric.
Created by MidJourney with a custom Tio moodboard
I’ve spent most of my life creating at two speeds, mach three with my hair on fire, or not at all. But I’m learning that artistry, like faith, exists most powerfully in the in-between. In the rhythm of preparation, the waiting between coats of wax, the soft edges of a brushstroke drying. Slow art reminds me to be present inside the process, not just at the end of it.
This fall, I’m trying to listen to that lesson more deeply. As the leaves curl and fade, the earth slows its breathing, and the sky lowers, there’s an invitation in all of it. To step out of the rush. To let the unfinished things remain unfinished for a day or two. To hold the silk gently, stir the dye pot slowly, and remember that creation, real creation, isn’t about getting somewhere. It’s about BEING somewhere.
Maybe that’s the message I want my daughter to carry into her marriage. Not the idea of perfection, or control, or having it all figured out. But the practice of presence. The kind of love that grows through patience and attention, through the willingness to slow down and listen even when life gets loud.
So I’ll keep making these scarves in small batches, one at a time. Each one will carry its own imperfect pattern, its own quiet fingerprint of this place and this season. And maybe, when she unwraps hers, she’ll feel what I felt while making them, the stillness, the prayer, the gratitude hidden inside every slow, deliberate act. And Love.
Because in the end, slowing down isn’t about doing less. It’s about seeing more. It’s about remembering that the sacred is almost always hiding in plain sight, waiting for us to pause long enough to notice.
Neuroscientists have found that when you give full attention to one slow, sensory activity, your prefrontal cortex quiets, your nervous system relaxes, and the creative centers of your brain wake up. That’s why slow art practices, like hand-dyeing, drawing, carving, or weaving, are proven to lower cortisol and improve focus.
If you’ve been rushing from one thing to the next, take one small creative act this week and slow it down. Choose something tactile, stir paint, sketch, knead clay or bread, sort brushes, dye fabric, anything that brings you back to the senses. Notice what happens to your breathing, your thoughts, your pulse. You’re not doing this to produce something, just to feel time stretch again.
Created by MidJourney with a custom Tio moodboard
The Puzzle and the Barber