James Merry is a hand embroidery artist,
originally from Gloucestershire in the UK, now based in Iceland where he
has been living and working with Björk since 2009. He works from
a small cabin studio on a lake fifteen minutes outside of Reykjavík,
working by hand in a variety of mediums. James is a self-taught
embroiderer, having originally studied Classical Greek at Oxford
University.
There are more ways to kill an orchid than there are to get one to actually stay alive, let alone bloom. They die if they don’t like their soil, or their water, or the amount of sun, or the amount of shade, or the environment in general, sometimes they die if they just plain don’t like you. Orchids are the pickiest plant in the world, and they would rather be dead, then put up with shit they don’t like. For those of the human race that can actually keep an orchid alive, you have been chosen, and you should be proud.
The work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres is some of the most pointed and intimate about gay male love and experience during the years of/following the AIDS crisis. It still haunts me when I think about it.
