This month’s studio recap has a bit of everything in it — a painting that fought me the whole way, a new (well, new-to-me) sewing machine, a wander through a sculpture trail, and a look back at last weekend’s exhibition.

“Vanished” — When a Painting Fights Back

Not every painting comes together effortlessly, and “Vanished” (80 × 80 × 4 cm, acrylic, oil charcoal, wax pastels, and gold leaf on deep canvas) was one that gave me real trouble for a while. There was a phase in the middle when, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if the painting would ever turn out right. I kept working my way through it layer by layer—building up my underpainting beneath the muted green and ochre tones and metallic gold leaf, working with charcoal and pastel. Ultimately, I’m satisfied with how it turned out. Sometimes it’s precisely the paintings that resist the most that end up having the greatest significance.

First Free-Motion Embroidery on My “New” Secondhand Machine

I recently picked up a secondhand sewing machine and used this month to try my hand at free-motion embroidery for the first time in a long while. It immediately brought back memories of my favorite class back in art school — experimental embroidery, where we worked freely with our own substrates and a mix of hand and machine stitching. It’s a completely different rhythm from painting, and I loved getting back into it. I’m excited to see where this new textile thread takes my mixed media work.

A Sculpture Trail Detour

In between studio time, we took a trip out to a sculpture trail, and I couldn’t resist capturing a few of the pieces we came across along the way. Always inspiring to see how other artists work at a completely different scale and in the landscape itself.

artWOMEN at Zeughausareal Uster

Last but not least, this month included artWOMEN, the group exhibition at Zeughausareal Uster where I showed alongside 18 other artists across 750m² of exhibition space. A wonderful weekend surrounded by so much creative energy — a few glimpses of that are in the video too.

Watch the full Month in Making video for all of it — the painting struggle, the embroidery beginnings, the sculpture trail, and the exhibition footage.