Connecting with people about art, also new rugs!!! - Why Am I Making This? Issue #13
Hey everyone,
How are you doing? It’s Julien, your friend and monthly newsletter-writer. A warm welcome to the handful of new subscribers that have joined! I send this missive once a month (usually), with whatever creative things I’ve been doing (pick a few from: pottery, textiles, painting, drawing, photography) as well as the status of my ongoing creative existential crises. If that doesn’t sound good to you, no worries, I won’t be offended if you unsubscribe at the bottom of this newsletter.
For those who have been following along a while - did you notice that I didn’t send anything last month? It’s kind of fitting, in a way. I started writing this newsletter last June, and for 12 months, I didn’t miss a single newsletter. It was time. Even though I never notice when the newsletters I subscribe to miss a day, week, month, it was hanging over me that I missed a month and still hadn’t sent anything. So here I am. I’ve done a lot of things since my last newsletter, and I’ve felt a bit overwhelmed thinking about talking about all of it, so I’m going to be very brief and mostly just show you a lot of photos.
I did a painting commission I was quite proud of back in May.
I did a photoshoot with my friend Ruby, her sister and model-muse Daphne, and Daphne’s friend Jackiellen, who designed and sewed the amazing dress that Daphne wore. All of these photos are on film!
I’ve gotten quite a few ceramics back in the past month or two, and then sold a lot of them (!!!) at a wonderful summer pop-up store in Portland called Loquat, which I found out about because Jackiellen is working there!
I’ve also sold a lot of my old rugs and punchneedle embroideries at Loquat! They had been sitting around my apartment for a year and a half, and I was thrilled to let them find new places in other people’s lives.
The enthusiasm of Loquat shopgoers inspired me to make a bunch of new rugs for the first time in over a year!
I did a photoshoot alongside Jackiellen of some amazing clothes for Loquat as well. (Madison and Jordan, two of the models in the shoot, are also Loquat’s founders.)
I also did another photoshoot with a food-and-community based group called Tender Table, which was great fun.
And finally, I have just done a ton of film photography. Like really, a ton. Here’s just a few from May and June. I have a frightening number of rolls of film that are still undeveloped as well. Yikes. I think I’m going to slow down with all this film.
And I think... that’s it! I’ve still been feeling tired and overstimulated by the world, as I talked about in previous newsletters (1, 2). But connecting with new people via art is slowly giving me a bit of energy for creating things that I haven’t felt for some time. Hopefully next time you hear from me, I’ll have gathered up enough of that energy to even talk about it here a little! Keep your fingers crossed.
Love, Julien