STORY
Janeen Singer Studio small queer-run business based on Tewa land in northern New Mexico. Janeen is an artist who sews and dyes garments for personal, practical and ritual use. She also works with people one-on-one to support them in better understanding their dreams and messages from unconscious realms (see Dreamwork).
The story begins with sea sponges, embodiment, coming out, and leaving the east coast.
Janeen (she/her) discovered sea sponges in 2011 when she was in the deep throes of her Saturn Return. At the time, she didn’t know what a Saturn Return was- She simply thought she was having an early mid-life crisis. Around age 28, she began to shed the religious structure of evangelical Christianity, heteronormativity, marriage, and the expectations to take care of others at the expense of self.
During this process, she found herself drawn to earth-based practices. She quit her job as a therapist and set out for California, where her purple haired aunt lived. On her way there, she became more and more disgusted with tampons. While traveling through New Mexico, and read about sea sponges for menstruation. They come from the ocean, have a history of being used medicinally-containing compounds being used to cure the very cancers that dioxins (found in tampons) cause, AND they are compostable.
Intrigued, Janeen tried them for her next cycle and fell into a kind of ongoing trance and fascination with the beautiful, holy sponge. There is no other blood collector that shapes to the interior landscapes of the body. And that was a metaphor for how so many people with vulvas are socialized to adapt to what is status quo- even hard, rigid, toxic cotton wads in our most tender areas. The experience of a piece of nature shaping to move with one’s curves and unique shaping was a breakthrough in many ways!
Since discovering sponges, Janeen’s work has expanded to offering a wide array of home, bath, and body reusables.
Botanically dyed silk pillowcases and scarves have become central to Janeen’s practice, as well as pottery and other forms of expression. Janeen creates work that sprouts from her own personal places of transformation to eventually share and offer publicly.
