Jennette Eala is an emerging fiber artist in Minneapolis, MN working in embroidery on found photographs. She previously created Gigi Hall Jewelry in Boulder, CO, where she raised her four children.
A longtime collector of vintage embroidered textiles, she began to dedicate herself to the craft when she moved to Minneapolis in 2024 and found a trove of vintage and antique photographs available in local shops. Filled with endless questions about the subjects, their lives and emotions, she was inspired to take needle and thread to the medium, thus reframing the subjects and prompting a textured dialogue on the complexities of gender roles and relationships and how they manifest across time and space.
Drawing as well on her education in sociology and psychology, her Substack Secrets and Lies presents personal essays alongside her embroidery works, to explore the intersections of visual and verbal storytelling, representation, and communication, particularly in the context of the lives of women, past and present.