We recently connected with Lauren McElroy and have shared our conversation below.
Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
It is my highest intention that my work be meaningful, healing, and to raise the collective consciousness with thought provoking words and imagery so that we all can work according to our ability to create this world in peace, truth and Justice. I have been led to make art that transmuted the trauma of sexual abuse into a reclamation of pleasure, art that took me on a journey of healing relational ptsd, art that explores gender authenticity, art that celebrates stories of Black, queer rural ancestors, art that promotes environmental justice, art that nourishes relationships with the land, and art for the promotion of peace. Each time I engage in the act of creation, I become a better person exchanging with the divine and increasing my capacity to engage with activism and social change.
I am currently working on what will eventually become a deck of cards. Each piece is a visual representation of a spiritual teaching that I have received. Each image will also have a written element that delves further into the medicine of the message. With the deck of cards, every one is a teaching, a balm, a blessing, a word, rippling out and lovingly touching all places it exists.
I have been working as a fiber artist since 2016. I am passionate about the medium of wool and within it have explored many different techniques.With my work I support communities, sustainable agriculture, and people doing good work in the world.
I work within my local fibershed supporting it by sourcing fiber from local farms, contracting the local fiber mill, and cultivating botanical dye materials. When I design and create my pieces I am conscious about the yarn and fiber choices that I make. When I cannot produce the yarn myself I choose to work with Black indie dyers yarn, and companies who’s work with whom my values are aligned. Always in collaboration with the spirit of the land the sacred act of creation; I grow, dye, process wool, spin yarn, design, teach, write and create from a place of meaning, and in allowing spirit to guide my work, I have made art that exceeded my expectations, took on a life of its own, taught me lessons I didn’t know I needed and led me to places that I didn’t know I could go.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
When I was 19 years old, I moved to an intentional community in rural Wisconsin. Living there was a formative part of my early adulthood and I am so grateful to have had such great role models and land partners. One of said land partners, A woman by the name of Kat taught me the basic stitches of both crochet and knitting. I fell in love instantly with the feel of the fibers running through my hands and dove headfirst into the world of fiber arts. It was not long after that I gained a reputation of a person who knits in the community. A woman who I was in spiritual community with happened to have a sheep homestead where she cared for about a dozen shetland sheep. She graciously gifted me with fleeces, on which I practiced my first forays into dyeing and spinning. After the birth of my first child and subsequent post partum depression the fiber arts, and more specifically knitting literally saved my life. I started Mother of Purl in 2016. My fiber arts journey is and always has been experimental, pushing me to grow personally and as an artist. I began by making little made to order hats and other wearables and trying to sell them at craft fairs and events. I quickly pivoted into designing knitwear and have been at it ever since. Currently I am working in knitwear design and have published over 60 independent designs as well as a handful in publications. I offer hand spinning services, hand dyeing on fibers with an emphasis on local, and most recently I have been pursuing visual art through the medium of punch needle embroidery. I am known for “doing all the things”. It’s true, I love fiber and textiles so much that I have experimented with just about every medium I’ve heard of, mixed them, and trail-blazed techniques.
I think what sets me apart from others is the same thing that sets others apart from me. We are all on our own paths, comparison and copying will only delay you from reaching your own potential. Listening to my intuition, letting spirit lead, and doing what specifically I am led to, according to my purpose guides my every step, sometimes to unexpected lessons, but always for evolution.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The fear of being seen. When I put my work into the world sometimes I have a moment of “OMG, I have to delete this right now and hide in my room, I can’t let anyone see that, it isn’t right, it’s not safe”.
This happened to an extreme when I released the Legacy Collection. The Legacy collection is inspired by the legacy of Black and Queer cowboys in the American west, and evolved into sharing my own experience as a Black and queer person living in a rural space and connecting that to Black cowboys and revolutionaries in the US. A deeply personal exploration, I had been working on the project for over a year, researching, designing, knitting, compiling, I even learned to ride a horse! When I released the project to the public, a 55 page zine with historical research, stories, poems, hot visuals, a 7 hour long playlist of Black Country music, centered around 3 original knitwear designs I was proud and relieved, but 3 days into my launch I actually removed it from the internet entirely for about an hour because I was having panic attacks about being seen, taking up space and that not being safe. I had experienced this feeling before with my first collection and the personal nature of the poetry that went along with it, and I have felt that protective urge come up after with my latest designs, but not to that extent.
I believe this fear to have been my brain trying to keep me small because in the past I experienced violence as a result of being perceived to take up too much space just by simply existing, a symptom of the over culture being patriarchal and anti-Black, homophobic, transphobic etc. I had to unlearn that putting myself and my work out there was unsafe, and in doing so I give honor and voice to my ancestors who forged a way for me to inhabit this body, this creativity, and take up exactly the space that it takes up, unapologetically.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
I believe that creativity and spirituality are for me, two sides of the same coin. When I ask for guidance on what I am to do in the world, how I can have a positive impact in my family, community, and globally I am led to make art. Expressing my creativity is a directive and when I respond by honoring that I am engaging in a spiritual act. When we create we too are made, becoming the best versions of ourselves, crucial for this world that so dearly needs us all to step into our highest potential.
I have been deeply impacted by the work of Julia Cameron, Lindsay Mack, Thich Nhat Hanh, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Octavia E. Butler, bell hooks, adrienne maree brown, Audre Lorde, St. Francis Of Assisi, The earth, my ancestors, and those who work for peace and justice in their daily lives and around the globe.
Contact Info:
- Website: Motherofpurl.net
- Instagram: @motherofpurll1