About the power of craftsmanship, the gift of AI and images that find their way out
Sometimes you see something so familiar that it feels like someone has taken an image from your mind and woven it to life on a monumental scale. That's what happened to me with the Dior couture collection in collaboration with artist Rithika Merchant. A world of symbolism, embroidery, and feminine stories full of layers, just like the work I long to create.
The magic of craft
Merchant's paintings, translated into embroidery by hundreds of artisans in India, formed the backdrop for Dior's spring/summer 2025 couture show. Over 144,000 hours of craftsmanship. 37 panels. 16 circular compositions. An ode to time, attention, and tradition.
I felt touched. Because that love for handcrafting is so relatable. For structure, textiles, lines, and layers.
But also because it chafes.
Lack of time as a silent enemy
If I'm honest, time is my biggest enemy right now. Not my inspiration, which is abundant. Images, stories, color combinations, silhouettes. I only have to close my eyes and they come.
But I have little time to use my hands as I prefer: analogue, with brush, chalk, collage, fabric, thread.
After my divorce, I was left to fend for myself with three young children. I had to put food on the table, and I had to make choices that didn't always lead to the artistic direction I deeply desired. But I have no regrets. My children are my greatest sources of inspiration. Thanks to them, I am who I am today, and I wouldn't have traded those years for anything.
Now that they are older and I slowly feel the space to create again, I notice that the fire burns stronger than ever.
AI as an unexpected gift
Precisely because time is scarce, working digitally and specifically combining new digital techniques with AI feels like an unexpected gift.
For me, AI isn't a 'quick fix', but a way to make my inner world visible at times when my hands aren't ready for paper or canvas.
Sometimes it feels like I'm betraying myself a little bit.
Because the images emerge incredibly quickly. Where I used to spend days, sometimes weeks, working on a single piece, I can now create a foundation in just a few hours, from which I continue to work. That's truly moving.
And yet I know how long it takes to make something by hand.
Time is in the work. The soul, the traces, the delay.
But what I also know is that many of my images would otherwise never leave my mind. They would remain lingering, waiting, piling up.
AI helps me bring them to life.
I cut, slide, add, pull layers apart, and reconnect them. The images are never purely digital; they are reshaped by my hands, my gaze, my story.
And as long as I stay true to that core, I believe it is truly my job.
My original, analog work, "Originals," is coming soon. As soon as my new website is up and running and I feel the air and tranquility again, my hands will return to paper. Then I'll paint again, paste again, with ink, fabric, and light. And those images will carry another layer: that of time, and of silence.
Intertwining
What Dior and Merchant demonstrated is that craft and art don't have to be opposed to technology. They can complement and reinforce each other. Just as embroidery doesn't replace a painting, but deepens it.
I also see this interplay in my work. My cards, prints, and images bear this dual layer: born digital, but with a soul rooted in something slightly older, something that smells of paper, linen, chalk dust, and memory.
What I take away from this collaboration is that the act of making itself is an act of love. Whether it's done with needle and thread, or pixels and prompts. What matters is the intention. The layer beneath.
And above all: that there is room to dream, even when time is short.
That there are ways to create, even if your hands have to wait a little longer.
That art finds a way even through chaos, through motherhood, through sleepless nights.
And that we don't have to choose between old and new.
Sometimes the beauty lies in what's in between.
In what is woven, from within 🩷
📸 Dior
