Scarlet Lettering (collab with Carolyn Bouchard)

After a couple of adjustments to my original sketch circa 2009, I contacted typographic embroiderer, Carolyn Bouchard, to gauge her interest in collaborating on the infamous literary drop cap. She gave me a crash course on embroidery, at which point I vectorized the first iteration, leaving room for her typographic sensibilities in the stem.

We sent files back and forth digitally, Carolyn at one point determining a quote from Hawthorne’s puritanical classic was most fitting: “Do anything, save lie down and die.”She hand stitched the seven inch “A” on an obliging black silk shirt and sent it back to me for styling and shooting.

Women battle the labels associated with their gender and sexuality on a daily basis. We can challenge the narrative by combining forces for the collective and individual stories we carry, by “doing anything, save lying down and dying.” If that's not legitimately scary on such an auspicious day, I don't know what is.