top of page
All Posts


Stations Journal Journey #38
Dec 23, 2025 The 14 Stations of the Cross, in fabric appliqué, are now complete. This stage of the Stations journey, 15+ years in the making, is about to change. Advent also is drawing to a close, or rather, to a transition or transformation. In two days we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, Emmanuel, God with us. As I have been living out this time of both the world being pregnant with anticipation and waiting, and my own creative gestation, both are being birthed a
Alexis Eastman
Dec 29, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #36
Dec 15, 2025 Well, Station #14 is ready for sewing. It is adhered together to the point I need it to be as I begin, which will be shortly. It seems rather strange to be spending the week with Jesus in the tomb while all around me is Christmas music, lights, presents wrapped and under the tree…My assistant noticed that as they took photos of our work in the studio the weather out the window has changed from winter to summer and back to winter again. I am contemplating today

Karen Brodie
Dec 18, 20251 min read


An Interview with Beau Mitzel, assistant craftsperson to the project
When Karen Brodie was organizing the planning for the creation of the 14 Stations of the Cross banners, she knew the workload would need more than just one pair of hands.
Alexis Eastman
Dec 15, 20253 min read


Stations Journal Journey #35
Dec 6, 2025 Station #14 has begun! This is truly a significant moment worthy of noticing. Hard to fathom is the place I was in a year ago, stepping out in both faith and trust into the unknown. It hasn’t gone by in a flash, but rather feels like a long row of similar days, a marathon, when I dedicated an entire year to repeating a pattern: trust, prepare, begin… trace pieces, cut them out, choose fabrics, iron the pieces on to the fabrics, cut them out again, adhere them to

Karen Brodie
Dec 8, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #34
Dec 3, 2025 Station #13 was completed, and we entered Advent. I would never have connected the image of Mary holding the body of Jesus with Mary becoming pregnant and anticipating the birth of this, her son, yet it has just become real for me. Station #13 holds the moment of heart-wrenching, heavy, all-consuming grief that descends when a parent unimaginably holds their child’s last earthly remains. The colours are intense and dark, yet there is a kind of beauty in the con

Karen Brodie
Dec 3, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #33
Nov 23, 2025 Yesterday was a rest day. I have noticed that rest days during this year are not simple blessings, nor easy. I tend to get grouchy. Yesterday I saw this pattern in me and wondered what it was about. I have observed that perhaps pausing the work button reminds me that it is all still there, just that I’m trying not to think about it. And also, that one day’s rest is not really enough. I just begin slowing down when the engine must rev up again. Which leaves me i

Karen Brodie
Nov 28, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #32
Nov 20, 2025 Well, Station #13 is underway! This week we confirmed the paper pattern and design (tweaking one thing that I’ve always wanted to), made all the pieces in Wonder Under (we marvelled at how we’ve adjusted to the new product that initially frustrated us greatly), chose the fabric palette, and almost finished adhering them together. Today we will continue to finish the pieces getting ready to be put all together. Beau and I, in the studio, have noticed that this one

Karen Brodie
Nov 25, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #31
Nov 12, 2025 I have completed Station #12. It feels hard to grasp, but here I am. I’d say that Jesus has fully died, but that feels so untrue at this moment. Everything feels so alive. I know it to be true that when death is close, we can also feel fully alive. I feel like I have lived through a liminal time this year as I have brought this project to life, intentionally trusting this 12 month creation phase. I am contemplating today the trajectory of this project as a pilg

Karen Brodie
Nov 25, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #30
Nov 7, 2025 It is 8:30am on a Friday morning, and I’ve already been sewing for 2 hours. Usually I have an intention to write a journal entry in preparation for what is coming, but this morning I am compelled to write about what is currently happening. I want to share and document it. Others have used the word ‘magical’ when referring to this project. I have not felt this way - until this morning. I had hoped to complete Station 12 entirely today. I’m not quite there yet, s

Karen Brodie
Nov 10, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #29
October 23, 2025. Station number 12 begins! This is such a joyful thing to say that it strikes me as ironic to know this will be the death of Jesus. We are beginning with the paper pattern, as usual, but my studio assistant created all the other paper patterns last spring, so this is the first we’ve drafted in a while. After that we trace the line drawing projected onto the paper to scale. All the others have been finished at 36” x 44”, however, number 12 was always going to

Karen Brodie
Oct 23, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #28
Oct 17, 2025 If you’re still reading this after the darker twists and turns of Station #11, I do thank and honour you! It is such a relief to have turned the corner from the frustration and inner stories that swirled about me over the past few weeks. Finally the 298 pieces of fabric in #11 were adhered and I could begin sewing them. The shift was palpable. Designing and bringing to life the high expectations and vision one holds in one’s creative sensibilities is no easy thin

Karen Brodie
Oct 17, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #27
Oct 15, 2025 What is the cost of discipleship? This question has come to the forefront of this project and has simmered throughout my life. And yes, I’m speaking financially, though there are, of course, many other layers to it. I have been wrestling with Jesus as I literally create his hands and bind them to the cross in stitches, patterns, textures, shapes, and fabric. I have also wrestled with this question of cost for more than 30 years, faithfully doing the work I knew I

Karen Brodie
Oct 15, 20253 min read


Stations Journal Journey #26
Oct 8, 2025 Recently, I was asked how this project is going. It felt like a loaded question. This project is at its most difficult point thus far. It has been hard. Even a struggle (sorry, @Margaret Wheatley, I know that word is supposed to be banished from my lexicon!). I have wanted to write an update but haven’t even known where to start. But here I am. Showing up. I have been waking early every day to the most artistically challenging work of my 30+ year artistic career

Karen Brodie
Oct 8, 20253 min read


Stations Journal Journey #25
Sept 26, 2025 This has been one of the most challenging weeks of this year of production. And also one filled with blessing. Back to both / and I guess… I think I’m getting tired. This marathon of art is wearing on me and my artistic soul is not getting much of the space it needs to breathe. The days of pause between Stations and between workdays and rest days have blurred long ago. I didn’t even protect my one day of Sabbath last weekend. My garden’s abundance has been suc

Karen Brodie
Oct 8, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #24
October 1, 2025 In my last journal I spoke of the both / and of the recent journey. This is about the other half - the blessing also experienced last week. On Sept 23rd we held an Open Studio, inviting people who have been watching this project unfold to come view Stations #1-10, completed from January to present. There were 18 people who came out. It was quite something even for us to see all 10 pieces of newly created art filling the rooms. We showed attendees the process

Karen Brodie
Oct 1, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #23
Sept 19, 2025 What a difference a day makes , so they say! Yesterday we found out that the Canada Council grant that we had worked very hard to apply for earlier this year was unsuccessful. These grant funds were the balance of our expected budget for this year. It’s a good thing this project was never about the money, but nevertheless, I must admit the news has rocked me with disappointment. Not because I will still not be able to pay myself more than pennies this year as

Karen Brodie
Sep 19, 20253 min read


Stations Journal Journey #22
Sept 16, 2025 Good morning! Well, it is September 16th and amazingly, we are rounding the corner to the final stretch of this incredible year of production and the next phase of this lifetime project of faith. I went to bed last night incredibly grateful for all the things that have brought me here. The overwhelming knowledge that this project has been divinely guided for over 15 years is quite astounding. The ministry it is birthing is just beginning. Station #10 was compl

Karen Brodie
Sep 16, 20251 min read


Stations Journal Journey #21
September 9, 2025. With Station #8 complete, I have now caught up to Station #9, which was the one I made as an experiment/test in 2017, first exhibited in Vancouver, B.C. at the Anglican Foundation’s show ‘infinite’, and the one that led to being offered a whole show in January of 2026. So guess what? We are now creating Station #10! It is well in hand and coming together nicely. Station #10 depicts Jesus being stripped of his garments. One of the sentences that comes back

Karen Brodie
Sep 9, 20253 min read


Stations Journal Journey #20
September 5, 2025 Happy September! Station #8 is complete. WooHoo! I wrote last time about some of the challenges we had to overcome with...

Karen Brodie
Sep 5, 20252 min read


Stations Journal Journey #19
September 2, 2025 It’s been a very full month! Thankfully, there were four camping days off in the middle which were a change of pace and...

Karen Brodie
Sep 2, 20252 min read
bottom of page
