We've followed the work of NY artist Sarah Nsikak for years, drawn to the way she moves between the functional and the atmospheric. It has felt full circle to now have one of her beautiful textiles at home in our new Brooklyn café: a lightweight panel hand-stitched organza silk and antique fabric.
On a recent spring morning, we stopped by for a conversation on sewing as meditation; the “perfect” free-jazz record; and the particular satisfaction of a cappuccino made at home.
My daughter and I get up around 7 and I get her ready for school before myself. I have a quick AM skincare routine that makes me feel awake and I rarely skip that. I like to start the day with tea or coffee most days: I make it at home or go to a nearby cafe after dropping Mali off.
When I remember, I do a morning meditation, which always makes a big difference but I’ve removed the pressure of doing it first thing and just try to fit it in after drop-off and before I head to my studio.
Now that it’s nice outside again, I like to either bike to my studio or walk until a bus catches up with me. Everything is in bloom so I’ve been enjoying my commute and looking forward to that alone time in my day.
I love coffee. I drink a cappuccino pretty much every day. When I make it, I use a single serving espresso machine and get a lot of satisfaction out of frothing the milk and doing the whole barista thing for myself.
If I’m drinking tea, it’s a loose leaf that I steep in a glass teapot that has a strainer in the center. A Chinese friend recently taught me that the full-leaf teas traditionally aren’t strained, so I let the full leaves of my hibiscus tea float around while I drink it. I buy the tea in bulk at a sweet shop in Chinatown on Grand Street and love how beautifully the leaves expand in hot water.
I love handmade mugs and enjoy drinking out of my green mug by ANK Ceramics. We did a little market in Maine together this past summer and did a trade: my dress for her mug and bowl. At a glance, the mug looks perfect, but in my hands I can feel the uniqueness of its handcraft, like the pinches where she attached the handle. We met years ago at a different market in Massachusetts and this time, we connected over motherhood and maintaining a practice of making functional objects. It's special that we were able to come away from the market with something made by each other.
I made some atmospheric works for a beautiful and conceptual light show by Lindsey Adelman at TIWA Select a couple of years ago. Alex Tiwa didn’t know I’d met Lindsey recently at a workshop by one of my heroes, Susan Cianciolo, and he reached out asking if I could create long panels that would serve as walls for moving through the exhibition. I had a loose palette, but was mostly given creative freedom.
The curtain I made for Canyon comes from the same spirit as those works. It is a simple, lightweight panel made with high-quality organza silk and antique textiles I’ve embroidered with a subtle figurative scene.
I feel like one of the most healing things we can do in this era of heightened tech and artificial- everything is to work with our hands and use our minds.
I reconnect with myself the most when I’m sewing, and feel like I can focus more on what is meaningful to me while I’m doing it. I can also turn my brain off when I’m working with my hands; that is meditation (as defined by Alan Watts who’s definition I really resonate with).
Getting to a place of real presence and the ability to observe my thinking mind varies widely, but I find that the repetitive motion of handsewing is my favorite way of getting into that headspace. It might be why I choose hand-sewing as the main modality in my art practice.
I think I will always love wax coated cotton because it’s what Ankara is made out of. This is a textile that originates from Indonesia but is traditionally used in African ensembles. I had many Ankara outfits made custom for me throughout childhood and I still revere the vibrant and intricately patterned textiles. I often wonder if there will be an era of my work where Ankara is utilized.
Right now it's Don Cherry’s record, “Relativity Suite.” It’s a free-jazz, heavily-improvisational record that is perfect to me. You can hear the voices of his children and wife on some of the tracks, which adds a layer of unrefined beauty that I don’t really get from contemporary music.
It’s not revolutionary, but I do my skincare routine no matter what. It’s not really about the outcome, it's about feeling like I didn’t neglect myself and made a little time for something relaxing (even if it’s only ten minutes).
I’m excited to visit my friends who just moved to Normandy in a sweet village that they’ve been loving. Our kids are best friends, and there’s truly nothing like a four-year-old reunion to break your heart and mend it all at once.
Hospitality sits at the center of everything Rowan Spencer and Emma Leigh Macdonald do. Through their project Mon Petit Canard, the partners and collaborators bring together food, music, and storytelling, creating gatherings that feel as natural and welcoming as spending an evening at a friend’s home.
Stepping into the day with our friend Leigh Patterson, a writer, editor, and founder of Moon Lists—who we recently collaborated with on a special booklet of “Prompts for the Morning.”
We joined Leigh where she’s spending the winter tucked into nature and working on writing projects between travels for her studio, LUCCA, which makes books, develops editorial concepts and research, and and creative strategy for brands, artists, and institutions.
In their hundred-year-old bungalow, Marta Gallery founders Benjamin Critton and Heidi Korsavong begin the day the way many of the objects in their gallery invite us to live: with presence.
Their mornings move through familiar routines: watering the plants; their dog Wiley returning from the garden carrying the scent of marigold; two oat-milk lattes made on a well-worn Breville.
These are the same instincts that guide Marta: an openness to the lived-in, the tactile, the in-between spaces where art and daily life meet. Below, they reflect on the small, sensory rituals that set their days in motion.