Last week we caught up with Nina Escalante. The talented artist behind the creation of our PATCH Series. We walked into her apartment just as she was waking up from a nap. Her winged eyeliner - still flawless. Nina had lots to show us right away. She excitedly pulled out a new piece that she's working on, explaining to us that working on the piece has been meditative for her. She lays it out, and it is sort of an all seeing eye. It's meant to be interactive and she pulls on a zipper she has sewn into one of the pointy eye lashes. It's marked by rows of Sashiko stitches along the top, as she has been working her way down. This piece is full of texture, faux fur and various denim scraps all merged together. "It's what I work on to practise sewing," she tells us. She’s talking about learning to sew with her partner Jason’s industrial Juki. Nina is doing just fine with a hand stitch.We chatted over a playlist Nina put on - Silk Sheets, each of us regretting that we didn't make it to one of Daniel Caesar's (4) shows. Sending a link to the playlist, afterwards she described it as "For the love making of the art". And it is obvious in being around Nina that she does love making art, and that she surrounds herself with it. 

We were joined by Nina’s friend and photographer for the day James Lai. When we approached James about photographing Nina he agreed, asking only that we respect his method which he described as “I tend to observe, understand the process and then shoot”. James shot most of the images on 35mm film switching between two or three cameras. He surprised us when he pulled out a huge camera that was plastic and bulky. It was an old polaroid. He told us it had a macro lens, good for shooting at a crime scene or something they would have used (ages ago) at a dentist’s office.

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Nina knots her thread the way her grand mother taught her. By pressing the tail end around the needle, wrapping above 3 times then sliding the whole thing down until it knots at the end of the thread. One of the best ways I've been taught, it is utterly consistent at being tangle free.