Jesse McCloud on the potential of thread art, the emotional attachment to their work and the pandemic’s effect on creativity
BY MARK ARIEL | PHOTO BY DUSTI CUNNINGHAM
California born and raised non-binary artist Jesse McCloud, 28, explored various art forms before settling on embroidery.
“I was a very active amateur photographer when I was in high school and even a bit after that—but I had trouble growing with it. I struggled to achieve my goals with the pictures I was taking and it started to not feel good anymore so I tried to explore different fields of art,” says McCloud in an interview with THE FIGHT.
“I grew up with both my grandmothers around and they taught me how to sew by stitching up some old socks that had tears in them and from there I started to sew my own buttons on clothing and eventually altering most of my clothes to my liking. It was the gateway to embroidery really,” reveals McCloud.
“All the sewing I grew up with made me want to explore different fields … I even started to make plush dolls and toys for friends and lovers. It felt good to create with purpose and I loved gifting people goods I made with my own hands. I often threw in some embroidery stitches into my plushies and eventually it made me want to explore the thread art alone because I realized the potential of it.”
While McCloud admits that “it’s a tedious and a challenging form of art” they say that they “immediately knew that this was something I would grow and love to do.”
“I love the textures in embroidery and the process of it all. Seeing each thread land in the correct place, creating shape and dimension with the threads is like ASMR to me. I love to play with people’s eyes and embroidery is a great art form to do it with. My favorite part of working with these threads is the actual sensation of the threads. Running my fingers against all the grooves, and turns of each thread is so satisfying. I often kiss my work as I go because it’s like kissing my baby actually. It makes me feel connected to it as I’m stitching; my work deserves the love and joy it also brings me. It also feels good knowing that these ties to embroidery are linked to my grandmothers teaching me how to sew and stitch as I grew up. There’s so much warmth it brings me knowing I’m here because of them.”
With all that has been going on lately McCloud reveals that they have “been on a sewing hiatus these past few months… The pandemic really took some of my art creativity away from me and I’ve been trying to pick it back up slowly again… Recently I’ve been working on the last big one of a series I was formerly doing. Based off the video game Cuphead, I’m doing a rather large piece with yarn instead of my usual threads and I am so exited to share this project once I’m done with it. It’s so big and the needle I’m using to put it together is so large it’s comical! Just wanted to make the last one of this series special. I have lots of others in mind but as of right now I’m trying to focus on this until I’m done. I was thinking of possibly creating a new series after this and maybe talking to a friend about using their space down at Junior High LA for a future art show again.”
For more on Jesse McCloud and their artwork check out: @gayponyboy
