So, the In Stitches Embroidery Showcase opens tonight at Renegade Handmade in Chicago. I wish I could be there to marvel at all of the wonderful artwork in person. The work of many of my stitching idols will be on display, including the wonderful and lovely Jessica Marquez aka Miniature Rhino. Jessica is pretty much the reason I began to try my hand at embroidery, her work is always such an inspiration, full of beauty, and oh, that neat, super-crisp stitching. Thanks Jessica! I have fallen hard for the work of Jennifer Porter, who goes by the name of Porterness. Scarily good! Check out some samples of the amazing work on display above, or even better, if you are in the area, get yourself down to Renegade Handmade. I still haven’t had a chance to get the images of my submissions out of the camera but you can see some pretty awful scans here. I have been sewing like a demon today to get some work ready for Supervente, neglecting husband, son, friends, siblings and email. Paris reporting will have to wait a little longer too, I have some exciting news to share when the time is right, it is good to be so busy, but why do I always leave things to the last minute?

I have such a treat for us all today, the supremely talented Jessica of Miniature Rhino is joining us. I have featured Jessica’s work a fair few times before here at LL&O, it was love at first sight for me and I continue to be spellbound by the beauty, intelligence and meticulous care Jessica weaves into her art works. I had planned a long preamble on ‘the collector’ as Jessica’s interview was originally intended as a kind of companion piece to Margie Oomen’s special birthday interview. But, yes, you are to be spared as I can barely string a sentence together at the moment. Jessica’s words really require no embellishment, I love this interview, to steal a phrase for its author, it “makes me float”!

Tell us a little about yourself, the media you work with and your creative process.

“Hello there! I’m Jessica Marquez and I’m 27 years old. I’m living in Brooklyn, NY right now, but originally I’m from California. The west coast is a huge part of who I am. It’s home to me and I associate it with family and warmth. I am a “baby adult.” My friend Nicola calls me this, because while I’m grown I’m still in between. Basically I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m trying to get there.”

” One day I want to up and leave, quit my day job and live the bohemian life in Mexico, learn Spanish and finally speak in my grand parents native tongue. The next day I want to quit my day job and create an artist retreat/ studio/ cupcake factory in Brooklyn. The next I imagine living in the middle of nowhere. I ride my bike to town and thrift all day long and then makes things in a little house. And while the where changes on the daily, mountains, beach or cabin, the fantasy always involves quitting my day job and making my little things. They make me happy as do my cat The Bug…”

“my boy Jeremy and my family…”

From where do you draw your inspiration: music, books, people, nature etc?

“I enjoy the idea of “cultivating your garden”, of creating who you are. I believe that my interest shape who I am and in turn I am changed by the more I learn. So I’d like for my interest and inspirations to be vast, layered, meaningful and always expanding from the last.”

“At the core I’ve always been drawn to the familial, mainly in images. My background is in photography, so I started photographing my family, then looking at vernacular images, and then studying the history of photography. Photography is so complex and rich- it’s magic, it’s science, it’s history, it’s holding the past in the present. Being introduced to these ideas sent me investigating science, natural sciences, Victorian culture, literature, archives, memory, identity politics and history.”

” My favorite place to be hands down is a Natural History Museum. I like science and art, displays, museums, archives, labels, old dirty stuff, age and decay.”

“I love music and reading too, although sometimes I forget how much, since life is so busy. But there are times when I’ll hear or read something that will make me float.”

“This might not be inspiration so much as a healthy competition but there are so many wonderful, creative, inspiring artisans on etsy. This lights a fire in me. I want to be making too, or I wish I had thought of this or that.”

” Its amazing how many makers there are trying so hard and I fight everyday to make my dream grow. It inspires me to see people make it, to make there own successes and fight hard to do it.”

If you could talk briefly about the background to one of your pieces which would you choose and why? Please tell us the story behind the piece.

“The most recent piece I made is actually a little grouping of four small embroidered/stitched constellations. I’m calling them Reading the Stars after the stories associated with these star groupings. I’ve stitched Ursa Major, Orion, Andromeda, and Cygnus on navy blue fabric.”

“These pieces started out awhile back with and idea that popped into my head and was filed away for later. Finally I was requested to make a custom piece for a little boy’s bedroom and thought that I would make his name into a constellation and surround it with the constellations from the month of his birth. ”

“(I just sent it out to her and haven’t heard back- I hope she likes it!) So from there I isolated a few of my favorite constellations into little pieces. I tried to be accurate and depict things to scale and with the right surrounding stars. That’s how I roll- craft and science, or maybe craft and my OCD. It’s a little science, a little myth, a little graphic pleasure.”

” I’m also in love with the names of constellations themselves as well as the stories. I like the sound of their names being said and the visual of the stories fixed and floating in the night sky- from points in the sky transformed to a giant bear or a soaring swan, and just the way the word Orion sounds.”

You can find Jessica in all of these places:
Etsy Shop
Miniature Rhino Blog
Flickr

Thank you so much Jessica for enriching our day with this wonderful insight into your creative life. I could quite happily camp out all day long in the Miniature Rhino shop, it always reminds me of the Soane Museum in London, full of carefully curated treasure and the most extraordinary work.

We are staying in Brooklyn for next week’s interview, who knows which day it will appear but appear it will. If we can all finally beat off the bugs I am hoping to get into a more regular pattern of posts next week. For now I am back under the duvet, the sickly nursemaid!

Oh and please go and check out this post over at Astulabee, it raises some interesting questions about self-revelation/experimentation and blogging. These are questions we all struggle with I believe, I certainly do, just how much of myself/family life to share, would readers find certain insights off putting, if I were more revelatory how would this affect the perception of my work? Ok, check the article out my dears!

I am fairly new to crafting and had always associated embroidery with a certain kind of fuddy-duddy Englishness, this idea obviously flowed from my total ignorance about the subject. As soon as I began researching the ‘new handmade/craft movement’ I discovered that my ingrained and untested notions about embroidery where laughable. If you read my post dedicated to the Forget Me-Not show at Gallery Hanahou last week you can only agree that there has been a marvelous re-flourishing in the art of embroidery. If you fancy adding some beautiful pieces to your home look no further than Etsy. I would also recommend a visit to Flickr where you can view work by some incredibly talented artists who work in this medium. Below you will find some of my personal favourites.

Survive (above) by Joetta Maue.

I admire Joetta Maue’s work very much, vintage linen, embroidery yarn and personal expression. These pieces spill out beyond the frame and set my imagination off along interesting paths! Scared is available from Joetta’s Etsy shop Bird & Bear.

Cathy Cullis draws, paints, writes and creates the most beautiful pieces of art with her sewing machine. I think that everyone has been astounded, although not surprised, by the artistry, symbolic power and poetic beauty of Cathy’s most recent embroidery work. Three Wishes – Embroidery Wall Panel (above) is one of my favourites. Cathy is updating her shop today, be quick and ask the Etsy gods for speedy click fingers!

I love everything that lovely Melissa of Tiny Happy makes! The Hiding Places Locket- Fern Grove is such a fresh and original way to carry some embroidered joy with you. Sigh!

Banishing the fuddy duddies! Super stylish Custom Embroidered Monogram tea/dish/hand towel from Chez Sucre Chez.

Love Birds from Lova Revolutionary would look very fancy in a child’s bedroom.

Super clean! Red Hair Black Comb Hand Embroidered Wall Plaque from Samski Art.

Working with embroidery and beading, Nea created this wonderfully framed piece: Flora Wall Wear – 18

I like the idea of Merit Badges for grown ups too, which would I get I wonder? So charming for Valentine’s Day (although a little late now, I have to confess that my gifts will be late this year!) these are very special. For Being Birds Of A Feather Merit Badges from Lee Meszaros.

Lichen For Your Walls, fabulous texture and colour from Ottoman.

Gate wrap-around Journal available from Cactus Conspiracy.

I am so in love with the work of Jessica Marquez who has an exquisite Etsy shop named Miniature Rhino. The Blue Tree Stump Embroidery (above) is a perfect combination of colour, texture and super-tight stitch work! We only saw a sneak peek of Jessica’s submissions for Forget Me- Not (incidentally you can now purchase the works included in the show here, I have bagged myself an early birthday present from the gallery, can you guess which one?) so enjoy some more work from Minature Rhino with me now.

Custom Heart Sampler.

X Sampler.

From Flickr (above). Swoon times five!

The Friday interview will appear on Monday, Ishi and me are off to look at a Nursery this afternoon. The bean is very ready to be a little more sociable and Mummy is boring at times, especially when she “presses the keys” (writes blog posts)! My Monday interviewee is an amazing artist from Korea, no more hints! I am also hoping to post a plush round up very soon!

Kisses kittens.
x

Tonight sees the opening of “Forget Me-Not” at Gallery Hanahou in New York. There is such a buzz about this show, the ripples have extended as far as our Island home. This evening Gallery Hanahou will present “a new generation of embroidery artists using needle and thread to depict love in broader terms, whether idealized and simple or brutal and complicated”. How I wish I could be at the opening of this amazing show, so many artists I love and admire are submitting work, it would be wonderful to coo over their samplers in person. This show, and all the sneak peeks posted on Flickr, have inspired me to go out and buy my very first embroidery hoop. It makes the Catty-Catty faces so much easier! I have other plans too, thank you all for the inspiration. Below are just a few of the pieces destined for the show that have caught my eye.

There are no words adequate enough to tell you how much I love this piece from Nicole Licht.

All three stunning submissions from Nicole Licht.

A sneak peek from Jessica Marquez. I can’t wait to see these revealed!

Beautiful submissions from Diem Chau

So sweet, Autumn/Winter by Apol Lejano-Massebieau aka La Pomme.

Vivienne Strauss’ narrative artwork transfers beautifully to this medium.

Fabulousness from Samski Art.

Amazing work from Shannon Rankin.

I love this joyful dancing cat from Vanessa Lauria.

There will be many more beautiful pieces of work on display at Gallery Hanahou. I hope to do another post on the show once all the images are in from tonight’s opening. We can browse the art online at the Hanahou shop from the 11th of February.

To keep the theme running a little longer I hope that you will join me next week for a special best of Etsy roundup dedicated to embroidery. Hooray, I’m off to admire my hoop now!