you have to fuck around to find out

Ok so I let this lapse for so long last time that I had to kind of cut it short to keep my thoughts together. I guess we’re covering January-April at this point !! Honestly, in January all I did was gather, scan, and upload anything I finished in 2025 to the site (check it out if you haven't!!!) and then I finally let myself get really into my sewing machine!

I gathered a big tote of clothes needing alterations, half finished projects, scrap fabric and patterns I'd collected and been waiting to do something with and just worked through it not really caring about the result, just wanting to try new things and really get to know what I could do with my machine. I also did a few alterations which just felt good to do!

hat (aforementioned in my last post) my first project with fusible interfacing!

I still haven't changed the foot on my sewing machine but did one very quick test (with my regular foot lifted) on some scrap paper and need to keep messing around with that, I have several directions I want to try to take that in. I've also started working on a few related pieces where I'm hand stitching through some photo prints. I'm really enjoying playing with scale here. historically, I've always worked pretty small, mostly due to just not having the space to work on large projects in my home-studio. I started with an 8x10 print to work on and have since started much smaller and much larger pieces using the same methods. I have a whole series in mind for this but I think I want to work a little more before I start talking about all the ins and outs! This (and perler beads-- more later) also led me to

 first test on an old shot (photo print, embroidery floss, flat back stones. 8x10

. ݁₊⊹STONING⊹₊ ݁.

which should come as no surprise as this is a tweezer activity. Luv. The day after I finished this, I found a whole book of vintage cross stich alphabets at a yard sale. divine timing or whatever. OK, now we can loop back around to perler beads which definitely came first but I ran out of brown halfway through my crucifix so I had to take a pause until I can find more of the same brown!

countless blessings from the thrift gods this spring

Obviously I've enjoyed the nostalgia of fuse beads but I've also really been drawn to the repetitive, almost meditative process of it (tweezer activities!!!) This brings me BACK to Noorann Matties, I think in my last post I mentioned her works in the USC show I was searching for more photos of. Well, prayers

were answered on that and more with a virtual studio tour and talk about her process and evolution of her work. It was so beyond exciting to see inside the process of work I've been following since I was 14-15 years old! Matties, who began her photo diary in part as a way to document and remember moments of her own life, spoke a lot about intuitive vs technical process. She described taking photos as a more gut feeling of seeing a shot and taking it contrasted by the "standardized, repetitive, technical process" of things like mapping and building beaded curtains out of these images.

perler bead, Polly Pocket, reliquary (not finished)

She kind of touched on this again when discussing her love of things like catalogs, lotto tickets, even romance novels. Following this urge to reference/research these things led her to realizing what they have in common and why.

details of Matties' Self Portrait as St. Sebastian

Maybe/

probably this is all super obvious and I just don't attend enough art talks but "You have to fuck around to find out" is something I 1000000000000% needed to hear.

oil pastel studies from LAST February I never scanned

Dang it feels good to get caught up (place your bets now on when you hear from me next x.) I’ll just speed through the rest of this recap;

February I went on vacation to Mexico, kicking myself for only bringing 1.5 rolls of film but geeked with how they came out (check out ig or my 35mm page to see more!) it also provided me with a wealth of inspiration and reference material, you know I’m always hunting for catholic iconography.

March was mostly just job stuff, (and another little weekend trip back to Walhalla) miscellaneous collaging and of course, my sexy little playlist<3 also in youtube mode this time!

views from gift shopping & church walking

I guess the theme of the past few months has been following the gut and not overthinking it.

Still experimenting, still have eggs in all kinds of baskets. Just picking things up, putting things together, seeing what sticks. 

thanks, as always, for looking

★