There’s this Carrie Fisher quote, “Take your broken heart. Turn it into art.”
Embroidery is one of two things i find consistently therapeutic: the more difficult one. I can cook in most moods, but I can’t reach for needle and thread when I’m at my lowest. So this was sitting in my head for months before I cajoled Sis into sketching it out for me.
Every stitch in it feels like another step towards some luminous numinous state of victory over my depression and anxiety. Small steps, of course, with a great deal of backsliding and self-loathing in the mix, but steps nonetheless, traced out in pinks and reds and maroon. I’m still here, and I’m healing, and even on days when my world and vision are greyed out, I’m still here.
A silk textile curtain sewed into this 13th-century bible to protect the delicate gold leaf illumination of the Stoning of Jeremiah.
Finally finished this FMA embroidery commission for kelly!
It took me a while to complete but the learning experience was marvelous and I am so so pleased with the end result. Plus, isn’t it wonderful to turn your favorite idiots into skaters and then surround them in flowers? Cause I can do that for you if you want 👀
✨🌈Commissions are OPEN! 🌈✨
Josiah McElheny (American, b.1966)
Observation Night series - 2019
Hypnopompic series - Kustaa Saksi
When farmers grow the same crop too many years in a row, it can leave their soil depleted of minerals and other nutrients that are vital to the health of their fields.
To avoid this, farmers will often alternate the crops that they grow because some plants will use up different minerals (such as nitrogen) while other plants replenish those minerals. This process is known as “crop rotation.”
So the next time you find that you need to step away from a project to work on something else for a while, don’t beat yourself up for “quitting” that project. Give yourself permission to practice “mental crop rotation” to maintain a healthy brain field.
Because I’ve found that when that unnecessary guilt and pressure are removed from the process, a good mental crop rotation can help you feel more energized and invigorated than ever once you’re ready to rotate back to that project.