I Combine Sewing With Painting To Create These Landscape Embroideries

When I graduated art school in 2017, I moved back in with my parents and began working a full-time job at a daycare center. I got into kind of a dark spot and was really struggling with working a job that wasn't what I really wanted to do, and the lack of time and studio space I had to work on my art as I did in college.

Sewing had always interested me because I had no idea how to do it. While in a Wal-Mart one day, I picked up some basic embroidery supplies. I liked the idea that I could make something and carry it around with me to work on. This began the journey I'm still on. I made a couple of miscellaneous embroideries, and had a lot of fun, but felt like something was wrong. I decided to treat them as I would any art project in school.

I knew that I needed to figure out a subject matter that I was interested in and work with that. I came up with the idea to pursue landscapes because I noticed that's what was filling up my Pinterest, that and baking recipes anyways. I was stunned by aerial landscape photography and decided that's what I wanted to pursue more of. After making a couple of embroideries that way, I was proud of them but still felt like something was off. I kept staring at my painting supplies and wished I could work more with them, as I really hadn't touched them since college. I had this "what if?" idea and gave it a shot with the hot air balloon piece. I fell in love with the process of drawing, painting, and sewing on top of it.

I enjoyed that they weren't 2D, but weren't fully 3D either, to me they float in between. I began to work and focus on that, which led me to this point. I've been working with this series for a couple of months now, and it's an ongoing project. I've really enjoyed this journey of exploring different materials and learning more about embroidery, and about myself as an artist and as a person. Also, if you're wondering, "why all the butterflies though?", long story short, they're for my husband. When we met in college we were moving to different states. While I was studying in Chicago, he came to visit and wanted to decorate my dorm for me.

We spent 15 hours crafting 120 paper butterflies, which he proceeded to hang from my ceiling. Fast forward to January 2020 when we were married. The butterflies (with many others were made in the meantime) became the backdrop for our ceremony. I use the butterflies regularly in my shop as a colorful reminder. A reminder of where I've been, how far I've come working on this 'hobby', and of his support for me.

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