Hobby Projects et al.

Two slightly lumpy handwoven twisted-seagrass baskets, one is small the other is a medium-large.
Twisted Seagrass Baskets

I've recently begun experiementing with new (to me) weaving materials beyond the standard round reed I started out weaving with. Seagrass has proved challenging in a very, very nice way.

Three natural reed baskets, one shallow filled with unpainted miniatures, one medium sized filled with dice, and one empty taller basket.
Reed Baskets

The shallow basket on the left and the taller one in the back are woven with a 2.25mm reed, the medium height one on the right is 1.50mm reed. Both are pretty good sizes for beginners.

A small, oval-shaped, double-walled basket woven with natural reed.
Basket Weaving:

I started weaving baskets this past spring during a graduate course on Indigenous Storytelling and Archives. Our instructor was a Cherokee woman, and at the end of the semester, she taught us how to weave traditional double-walled Cherokee baskets. My first basket was the tiny adorable little thing you see to the left, it currently holds some game tokens.

I wound up really enjoying the craft and have continued to weave baskets. (It makes a really good form of stress relief during finals week.) Over the summer I started branching out into other materials, starting with dyed flat cane, which I used to make a big rainbow basket, and then, more recently, seagrass, which you can see above.

A large, circular, double-walled basket. The inner wall is natural-colored reed. The outside is colored flat cane in a rainbow pattern.
A two-faced deer in a dapper purple Victorian suit.
Lazarus

A friend's OC, this is the most extensively kitbashed mini I've ever made. 4 minis were used for the head.

A lobster mermaid crawling over a rock.
Grish "G." Melody

My PC from a Monster of the Week one-shot. She is a siren whose mer-base is a lobster rather than a fish.

A woman with her rib cage exposed wearing a dress painted to look like flayed human flesh
Unnamed Tzimisce Model

An unnamed Vampire: The Masqureade NPC modeling a dress made out of human muscle tissue.

A young, pink-haired woman with a backpack walking down the road.
Lucy Ryan

Painted for Artfight 2024, Lucy is a friend's OC and is in a band in her home universe.

A lobster mermaid crawling over a rock.
College AU!Mercy

A friend's V:tM character, a blind Banu Hakim assassin. I reimagined her as a student with a seeing eye cerberus.

A woman in trousers and a waistcoat, poised with a rapier.
Nyx

A V:tM NPC for Mercy (not College AU), Nyx is a member of Mercy's former Sabbat pack, which she ran away from.

Miniature Painting:

I've been painting miniatures since late 2021. All of the above minis were painted (and kitbashed) during Artfight 2024, an annual art trading event that runs every July. If I'm not drowning in thesis work, I'll probably participate next year too.

Visit My Artfight Profile
A zine titled 'naked riots. great madness jazz,'
Zine Making

I love making one-page mini zines. This one is cut and paste, but I've also made them by taping things in, writing, drawing, using stickers and stamps. This is one of my favorites.

GOLEM'S TEETH KITHAIN ARCHIVE Finding aid prepared by Eleanor Birch, MLS, ARA Title: Luba bat Amram Personal Fonds Owner: Wren Markova, MD Collection No.: K01 Dates: 1850-2023 Extent: 4.5 linear feet (4 long boxes, 1 flat box) Abstract: The personal diaries of the Kindred Luba bat Amram of Clan Salubri, born 1793, embraced 1825. Her aliases include Talia Androvskaya, Sarah Glass, Miriam Glass, Leah Rubin & Wren Markova. Materials include full diaries, diary fragments, miscellaneous papers, a daguerrotype, a tallit katan, and a Hebrew Bible. Language(s): Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew & English
Game Writing

My writing has been published in various small time magazines, and I also write a fair bit of fanfic. I've recently begun posting write ups of my solo journaling RPG playthroughs on Ao3 and have a TTRPG system overlay in the works that will eventually be put up on my itch.io page.

Ao3 itch.io
A partially sewn 18th century pocket being made from red-linen.
Two finished 18th century pockets made of red linen.
Thomas, at a Renaissance Faire in 18th century dress, with wattle patterned stays, a skirt with the pockets worn on top, and a head scarf.
Sewing

I've been able to sew since I was young, but I've only recently starting making historical garments. First up, these red linen pockest! (I did not make the beautiful stays I'm wearing, a friend made those for me.)

Recommendations:

If you've made it down here, I assume you are interested in what I'm doing and have perhaps have invested enough time in my nonsense (affectionate) that you'd be willing to trust my taste. So here is my plug for some things I think are extremely cool:

  • Garland Weaver is an up and coming game designer with a specialty in immerisve games and theater. They are doing some extremely cool stuff. I highly recommend their ttrpg Tales of Italia, a Tarot card driven game based on the Commedia dell'Arte. I narrowly missed the opportunity to playtest it before release.
  • Arctonauts - Maintained by polar scholar Ed Wuyts, Arcotonauts is a respository of out of copyright primary sources concerning the history of polar exploration, the aim being to make these sources more broadly accessible to researchers. Their current focus is the Lost Franklin Expedition.
  • Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907 by Emily Legg - A really fantastic book and a must read if you are interested in Indigenous scholarship and writing. Legg, Cherokee herself, provides not only an excellent history of the Seminaries, but also give a very clear picture of how she is using Indigenous methologies in her work, defining the theories and terminology as she goes.