aiads Realm is here! This is a name I have been circling for a few years, not quite knowing if it would become anything, not quite knowing what or where it was. But the day has come, and Naiads Realm is right here. This is indeed a realm: a place to wander into, to explore. Named after the nymphs of springs, rivers, and lakes in Greek mythology, this is a new world for me, and for all who wish to enter.
This is a continuation and a renaming of my textile and embroidery work, which I first began under the name Scarlett and Giselle in 2017. Scarlett and Giselle was a shop and blog dedicated to “women’s work”, the name given to art forms that are traditionally thought of as feminine crafts. These crafts, like textile production and needlework, are often considered less impressive than other mediums that are deemed “high art”, like painting or sculpture. I, however, along with many people, find great significance in what we choose to adorn our bodies with, and I believe textiles and needlework are important because they are “feminine”, and because they are everyday crafts that can be transformed into wearable masterpieces. After years of lusting over and studying designer pieces and historical dress, I began embroidery as a way to decorate my own garments. With embroidery, I could create elaborate clothes that I could previously only dream of owning. With time and experience, I began to sell reworked vintage pieces, embroidered with my designs and imbued with stitched magic.
I continue to learn this art form on top of an education in sewing that my Grandma gave me when I was young, and in a way it felt like a natural progression of my interests and background. I can remember exploring my Grandma’s cabinet of fabric and buttons, running my hands through all of it, excited to be able to touch so many colors at once. I felt like I was carrying on a part of what she loved to do when I took up needlework, and to this day I use embroidery floss that was once hers in my work.
I am now transforming this passion into a new thing, which is both different and the same. I’m building on all that I’ve created in the last six years, and deepening my practice. Exploring an ever-expanding imagined realm is already bringing me freedom. I can be many beings at once, and create many things I hadn’t had the courage to before. Naiads Realm is now my brand, the home for the things I create and want to share with others. Naiads Realm holds the things I love most: myth, magic, art. You can find it in dreams, and in nightmares too. It’s named after figures in myth who are dangerous and divine at once. I always invite a little darkness into my work, and the naiads’ particular form of otherworldly magic feels like it’s at the heart of what I hope to create under this new brand.
Naiads watch over bodies of water, and they embody these places as well, becoming bodies of water themselves. Water in magical tradition represents intuition, emotion, love, and dreaming. Waters run in to each other, all becomes one. Waters contain depths, places mortals cannot go. Water is mystery. Choosing naiads as a namesake feels like I’ve invited their magical watery energy into this new realm. I hope you’ll explore it with me.
