Swampy

I am making a series of drawings for a comic book residency, here is the first one, it's not finished yet but I wanted to preserve this stage/show it off because I am pretty excited about it. The brush pen was drying out and the paper is a nice soft texture with a heavier weight so I got some cool brushy things happening. I basically picked a bunch of stuff I wanted to draw and put it all together for fun. I had an idea for a story but I'm a crappy writer so I thought this would help me get past the dread of not being witty or cool enough to make it in the first place.
Also my friend Suzan told me about this embroidery thing, Hoopla, it looks pretty cool and it's FREE to enter/no limit on submissions. Get stitching everyone!

Brooklyn Comics Fest

I went to the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. There was alot of newsprint this year, which I am okay with because I couldn't afford alot of the nice artist books or perfect bound copies. I wanted to buy alot of other stuff but restricted myself to supporting the people I knew there, and I'm using the stuff I bought as christmas gifts. I hope you like weird staple-bound, homemade stories.



Also here's the other embroideries that are up right now at Destination.

I'm a lover not a kern-er

I think this is kinda stupid but I'm making alot of these and enjoying myself anyway. Nanny nanny boo boo.

shoot your stars

Embroidery experiement:

old embroideries + new musicians

I noticed I never posted the embroideries I did for the Missed Connections show at Lucky Gallery. Here they are:








My Metrocard (glitter does not photograph well):



Honne Wells (see him live-and for free-at the Delancey Nov 2nd):






Some sketches of musicians from the Paper Raincoat show. Diana Ho just posted some work she did for them on her blog.

Embroidery in Progress

I have had an "auto-tune the news" song stuck in my head. I would encourage you to seek the videos out online but then you'd be mad for having the same dilemma. They sure are catchy.


a view of the new studio.



An embroidery piece (and sketch) I'm working on for the Lucky Gallery show.


My puppet was transformed into a marionette on friday, thanks to Diana and Shiraj. His instruments need some love but I think he's coming together and is very charming.

spring fever...

Finally got back into the embroidery thang. This looks better in real life, come see it this Saturday at King's County Bar in Brooklyn.

Big Rock Candy Mountain

The Hens Lay Soft Boiled Eggs. gouache, embroidery, and applique on bandana fabric, 2007. © Jess Ruliffson.

The Farmer's Trees Are Full of Fruit. silksreen, toy bird, embroidery and gouache on bandana fabric, 2007. © Jess Ruliffson.

The Jungle Fires Were Burning. Applique, embroidery, gouache on bandana fabric, 2007. © Jess Ruliffson


These are from a series of ten done in the spring for the Location as Character show at the SVA Westside Gallery on West 26th Street.

Lately I heave been inspired by Marc Burkhardtand Jenny Hart . Ironically, I have been having an itch to move to Austin lately, and they are both Austin-based artists. I had seen Marc's work in 3x3 and one of his promotional mailers via Minh from the Village Voice when he spoke in our class last fall, but sometimes looking twice really helps. I just heard of Jenny via a Google search for illustrators working in embroidery, as I've been exploring the medium all year and am looking for a place to go with it.

There's also a show at the Museum of Art and Design you should check out called Pricked: Extreme Embroidery. It's up till March 9th, 2008.

Here are some other pieces I made this fall, since I have been lax with my 'Embroidery Tuesday' entries, and will likely not be updating through the holiday.


River Baptism. Embroidery on linen, 2007. © Jess Ruliffson

Small Talk. Embroidery and gouache on cloth dinner napkin, 2007. © Jess Ruliffson.