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Jen Kiaba

Occasional dispatches from an artist and writer about making things, noticing things, and following strange threads through art, story, landscape, and the creative life. Sometimes I'll leave you an image to carry away.

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Weathered stone gateposts and a low stone wall stand at the edge of an overgrown field surrounded by bare trees. The house and estate the entrance once belonged to are no longer there.
Featured Post

🕯️ Haunted Lantern #2 - The Things That Remain

Hi there Reader, Welcome back to my Wayward Cottage at the edge of the woods. Before the Wayward Cottage, I lived in an old carriage house that had once belonged to a grand estate. Think: questionable kitchen in an old horse stall, bedroom in the hayloft. And more giant spider visitors than I care to recount. The place was rather wayward as well, now that I come to think of it. 😏 The mansion itself was long gone. All that was left was an empty field. There wasn't even a foundation. But this...

11 days ago • 1 min read
Weathered handmade wooden ladder leaning against a tall tree in an autumn forest, surrounded by slender trees and a ground thick with fallen golden-brown leaves.

Hi there Reader, Today I'm taking you up into the woods. There are no paths there that the deer haven't made. Instead there are ridges and rock formations, an abandoned house, traces of a forgotten road, and eventually, a swamp. I've spent over 15 years wandering and photographing these woods - occasionally being lucky enough to find a morel mushroom or two for dinner. The woods themselves feel full of history and stories, waiting to be discovered. One fall afternoon in 2013 I found a rickety...

5 days ago • 1 min read
An old tree with strange bark, like lacing

Hello there, Welcome to my Wayward Cottage at the edge of the woods. Can we take a look at this tree together? A strange, beautiful tree in Woodstock, NY. It’s the bark of a tree I encountered on one of my wanderings long ago. It struck me because it looked as though the tree were bound in a corset of its own making, encountered in the process of breaking free. I’ve been back to this part of the woods many times over the years, now with my daughter. And yet, years after taking this photo, I...

21 days ago • 1 min read