Unwrapping

Hi! You haven’t heard from me in a few weeks. I’m about to undergo some seasonal changes, with the intention of prioritizing my studio practice for the remainder of 2023. If all goes well, you can expect some more Folds in your inbox!

A special Hello to the new subscribers who have found me through the ConvertKit Creator Network! Thank you so much for being here! I will strive to be worthy of your time.

Cheryl R. Riley’s Glyphs Deck

I got this for myself as a birthday gift. Cheryl R. Riley is an artist I had the pleasure of meeting at the Ox-Bow School of Art residency in 2018. She works in many different media which you can browse on her website. In her work she often discusses the African Diaspora and holds an imaginative, futuristic view around it. If you’re into Octavia Butler or Nnedi Okorafor, you’ll definitely enjoy Riley’s work.

While we were in residence together at Ox-Bow, Cheryl showed me some of her Glyphs series - invented iconography painted on pages from a 1957 encyclopedia.

Well, I’ve been thinking about those Glyphs ever since. Recently I learned that she’s turned them into an oracle card deck!

I’m so glad I get to hold a piece of her marvelous work in my personal collection. You can get your own copy here. I highly recommend following Riley’s beautifully curated Instagram account.

I didn’t wrap my birthday present to myself, although it was beautifully packaged for shipment. It got me thinking about how the point of wrapping gifts is to enjoy the unwrapping.

Furoshiki

​Furoshiki is the Japanese art of wrapping things in fabric. It’s elegant, sustainable, and a thoughtful way to give gifts or merely carry things from here to there. Check out this video where Kimono teacher Billy Matsunaga (who is also French, bear with me here) demonstrates several furoshiki wrapping techniques. ​

If you want to go deeper, you can find furoshiki instructions all over YouTube and Pinterest. I’m thinking of hemming some of my larger pieces of fabric and trying it out. Have you done this? Let me know!

The Paper Tiger Story

Delving into furoshiki reminded me of the Paper Tiger, a long-defunct papercraft store in Albuquerque (where I grew up). When you bought something in their shop, even if it was just one greeting card, they would tear off a sheet of brown Kraft paper from a giant roll and elegantly fold up your purchase in it. I can only guess how much overhead cost this added to their business. After a while, they stopped doing it. My friend Mely had some …constructive criticism for them. She whisper-screamed to me that she used to shop there because every purchase felt like unwrapping a present. It gave her an extra-special feeling. When they stopped wrapping things in brown paper, that specialness went away. My friend felt seriously let down. I sympathize completely.

What’s Making Me Happy

Who else is into the Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon? Don’t worry, I’m not here to proselytize if it’s not your cup of tea. I just finished watching season 2 and I particularly loved the embroidery-inspired opening credit sequence.​

Here’s Mashable’s breakdown of each element in the tapestry as it tells the story of House Targaryen. ​

Wanna dive a little deeper down that rabbit hole with me? Here we go!

Click here for a tour through the Bayeux-Tapestry-style Game of Thrones weaving. It’s annotated! (And it contains spoilers.)

A GIF For Those Who Read This Far

Long May She Reign.*

xoxo Sarah

*yes, I know how it ends.