Every Sunday, NEPA Creative turns the spotlight on some awesome creatives. This week, we have Leann Walsh!
After graduating from King’s College and heading down to Philadelphia to get her Master’s degree in Molecular Biology at Drexel University, Leann began really struggling with anxiety. In order to cope with the stress of a new environment and graduate school, she started painting in her free time. Leann found that the simultaneously chaotic and organized style required to paint galaxies was a relaxing escape from tests and classes. A few years later, a friend of hers introduced Leann to cross stitch, and she very quickly fell in love with it. Much like the space paintings, it required just enough thinking to distract her from her anxiety and keep her brain busy with something else. Not to mention, cross stitch is so often considered a lost art, or a grandma-esque hobby, so Leann loves bringing sarcasm and a modern attitude to her pieces. She tends to alternate between cutesy family/animal stitches and those that are sarcastic, snarky and a little subversive.
Leann has now been stitching for 3 years, and on most days she can be found sitting on her couch with her dog, watching Netflix and cross stitching (especially in these quarantine times!) She has unabashedly pulled out her work-in-progress pieces on car rides, planes, at friends’ houses, and even at a wedding after-party! There’s no shame in finding something you love to do, and doing it whenever you can. Leann is so glad that even though she’s a scientist, with a very logical and right-brained career, her creative side can still thrive, too.
Above all, Leann loves when people reach out to request commissions; she has stitched so many things that she never would have tried unless someone asked her to. Both painting and cross-stitching started as hobbies to keep herself busy, and she’s so glad that now she can use them to bring happiness to others, too!
To see more of Leann’s work, follow her on Instagram @mixed_up_mediums For commission inquiries, you can also email her at mixed.up.mediums@gmail.com
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