Intuitive Embroidery
A segment of Luxury at Play, a workshop presented at ASAP/15, 2025
“Why do we work so long and so hard? The mystery here is not that we are required to work or that we are expected to devote so much time and energy to its pursuit, but rather that there is not more active resistance to this state of affairs.” – Kathi Weeks in The Problem With Work
I was thrilled when my colleague Mallary Wilson asked myself and Hayashi Wilder to participate in a workshop she was proposing for ASAP/15 called Luxury at Play (full workshop description below images). The purpose was to create an opportunity for attendees to come together for an hour of non-productive play wherein Mallary would teach a bookbinding technique, Hayashi would lead a poetry session, and I would facilitate an activity I have been dubbing intuitive embroidery.
Intuitive Embroidery Workshop
Intuitive Embroidery Inspiration
Prior to graduate school, I spent more than a decade developing and promoting a jewelry collection. I focused on craft techniques like hand-stitched beadwork and basic metalwork, and approached my work from a very capitalistic perspective. You must when you are creating collections, marketing them, and analyzing ROI. Time must be spent carefully, items must be made efficiently.
Although it was the making itself and the design experience which initially drew me to the work, it had transformed into something no longer looked like art I happened to be making money from. I suddenly found myself selling products that I happened to be manufacturing myself, by hand. At this point, I had opened and was running a gallery that I had to keep stocked with my work and the work of others, showing at least once a month at other shows throughout the southeast, and completely burned out. When I realized what was lost in my attempt to build a feasible life around my art, I simply stopped.
I shut down the gallery, I closed the wholesale and consignment relationships I had with galleries and shops, and completely stopped making. For the first time in my life, I spent almost two years away from my practice.
When I slowly started dipping my toes back into it, I approached with a very particular intention to work in a way that was not only not commodification-minded, but actually rejected the capitalistic framework altogether. In other words, using materials without an end ‘product’ in mind, avoiding creating marketable ‘series’ of things, and using craft skills that have traditionally been used to create functional objects or add value through decoration, to create art objects that are both useless and lacking in purpose and intention. This intention manifested in the following exercises: raggedly stitching sentences I’d pulled from old diaries into found scraps of paper with old thread; stitching the likeness of a childhood horse drawing over and over, overlapping and in nonsensical patterns, from memory; sewing leftover fabric pieces together using embroidery thread, with no end goal in mind.
Like the free writing I describe in Ode to Objects, making in this way – unhindered by goals or a need for results – is a very generative practice. It forces you to slow down, release expectations, and follow whatever thread arises, so to speak. That is the opportunity I hoped to create with the embroidered bookmark session of the Luxury at Play workshop.
ASAP/15 Workshop Description
written by Mallary Wilson
When was the last time you played as an adult? When was the last time you luxuriated in time set aside for you to just enjoy your existence and try your hand at something new? No pressure to succeed, no demand to post a perfect outcome on social media, just time to experiment and connect with yourself and your community. Poetry, art, and craft are often seen as a luxury because our humanity is seen as a luxury. As if it’s something we don’t need or don’t have a right to. Our existence does not have to solely be about work. What part of humanity have we denied ourselves based on a societal definition of luxury?
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Through 3 facilitators using their expertise in the 3 artistic disciplines, we are inviting people to discuss their experiences with play, express that in poetry, bind it into a small book, and create a cloth bookmark.
We will start with a discussion and facilitation by Teena Wilder on her experiences with poetry and experimental prose. Each attendee will have a chance to write something in a format they see fit. Mallary Wilson will then facilitate how to bind their work into a small book and Ryan-Ashley Anderson will walk them through an intuitive embroidery lesson for a bookmark. All supplies will be provided. Each attendee will leave with their own bookmark and handmade book of poetry. The three facilitators come from extensive contemporary art-focused and cultural research backgrounds. Teena Wilder is currently a Curatorial Fellow at the Portland Art Museum, a fine artist, and a performance artist. Ryan-Ashley Anderson is a writer, performance and visual artist, and creative director. Mallary Wilson is a college art professor, digital artist, and graphic designer.
We believe in the power of community and the right to experience the luxury of our humanity outside of capitalist demands on our time and production. During our discussions, we will touch on research that supports the cognitive and emotional benefits of play for adults and how poetry can be an elevated and effective form of communication. No experience is needed for this workshop. Just some time and a desire to learn something new, meet some new friends, and play around.
Interested in Ryan-Ashley facilitating an Ode to Objects workshop at your location? Please email to inquire.