ErikaMoen posts
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Estranged Mother's Day (AND BEAN PHOTOS)
The older I get and the more years I've had without contact, the more I appreciate how hard my mom was trying to be a good mother, to keep her family together, to share love with us, with me.I went no-contact in 2010 and my life got substantially better but my heart still hurts.She wasn’t a bad person, though she did bad things.She was mentally ill and traumatized and had zero resources to deal with it, let alone even name those things in the first place. She was absolutely doing her best ...
ART: The Making of Consentacles
Remember that baller Consentacles and Consenticles faux-Ancient-Greece disk painting-thing I did for my friend, Clare?Clare requested illustrations of two characters: Consentacles and Consenticles, deities who provided consensual tentacle and testicle touching, respectively. Originally, I had pictured this as two separate pictures, one for each character, that could work as a whole piece when hung next to each other but could also stand alone.Consenticles (right) is holding a tray of rounded foo...
April Round-Up
Here's my round-up of projects and posts from April! COMIC: I Miss You (2003?) 🔒Y'all ready for some Vintage Erika Comics? This one comes fresh out of the oven circa 2003ish, when I was experiencing my very first heartbreak as a 19/20-year-old.(7 pages) COMIC: Trauma by Lux Alptraum and Erika Moen for Oh Joy Sex ToyOne of my favorite writers, Lux Alptraum, and I teamed up again to explain complex topics in easy-to-understand comics, this time breaking down what exactly “trauma” is...
From RIP to Repair: Sleeping Bag Edition
Sometime after I moved to Portland, I bought my first sleeping bag. Considering that that was 17 years ago, this guy has held up really well! But time comes for us all and the case-thing that keeps it wrapped up tight has developed two spectacular tears with frayed edges that are large enough that they're actually getting in the way of stuffing and hauling the rolled up bag around.The holes, they are large.I didn’t take a proper picture of how frayed the edges of the tears were, except for...
Lemon Leaves
Lemony Snicket is my potted Improved Meyer Lemon tree that I got abouuuuut…. three years ago? Oh wait, it was not too long before the pandemic, actually. I remember because we had a couple stay at our house for a few days and we had to relocate Lemony from her spot at the dinner table so all the humans could sit together. We were supposed to have more houseguests later but then quarantine happened not long after that first batch of friends and then we didn’t have anyone stay with us for year...
18th Century Pockets - Completed?
Well, I finished them!My 18th century pockets, I mean.They’re ‘sposed to be worn like this ⬆️ underneath all the skirts and whatnot, with a slit in the outer layers to allow access to the pocket. (Above photo from the Thistle Thistle pattern)My sewing group advised me to use bias tape to cover up the raw edges of my fabric, which were already fraying. They showed me how the funny folded ribbon-strip folds over the exposed edge of the fabric and is sewed down over it so that it won’t co...
COMIC: I Miss You (2003?)
Y'all ready for some Vintage Erika Comics? This one comes fresh out of the oven circa 2003ish, when I was experiencing my very first heartbreak as a 19/20-year-old.It is kind of an out-of-body, out-of-time experience to look back on my break-up comics and remember that, yes, I was in very real pain that I couldn't understand, and also, oh, you sweet little idiot, you were not nearly as much of an innocent victim in that story as you believed you were. It took a couple decades, but those ...
Wandering Raspberry Patch
Today is Friday, April 14th, and I am walking my cat on her leash around the yard. Literally, right now, as I write this, I’m typing with my right hand on my phone while the loop of her leash is hanging on my left wrist.But that’s not what this post is about.This post is about what I found in the newest grow box that Matt built for me and I sowed with sugar snap pea seeds several weeks ago.Computer, enhance:That, my friends, is not a sugar snap pea sprout.That is a raspberry shoot.The previo...
Joy Project: Sketches
I did it! I drew all 171 word prompts that you guys shared with me for the Joy Project! (This is a giant collaborative fiber art piece illustrating the things that bring people joy)I numbered each of the words that were submitted. Here's some of the sketches.114 FloatingSome words I'd realize "Hey, this other thing I drew would actually double up with this new word pretty well!" so some sketches have multiple numbered concepts by them, such as the one above. No. 111 Exploring Gen...
March Project Round-Up
Here's all the posts and projects I got up to in March!I Still Stand By This (drama-alert) (🔒 Private!)Locked because the internet is literally insane and I needed a place to talk about it.The Joy ProjectFirst video update on the giant collaborative fiber project I am creating with my patrons! I dive into sketching out the “nature”-themed words that people submitted to the project.2005Matt re-discovered a collection of black and white film photos he took when we had just met back in 2...
20th Anniversary DAR!
Ok, so I was sitting on our couch just now and the setting sunlight was casting the most amazing shadows through our thin white curtains. There's this curvy little crabapple tree dead center in front of the living room window. The trunk and branches aren't, like, gnarly, but they're lightly swoopy and the twisting shadows they cast are even more pronounced.Writing this now, I just realized why those shadows triggered an intense sense-memory of being a college student: my campus was f...
The Joy Project - Video Update
I did my first creative work on the Joy Project (working title)! You remember? That collaborative project that I used to lure a bunch of you into signing up to this Patreon? Yeah! That one!Watch the video above or just read this transcript of what I say in it below as Youtube-Erika:Ok, so remember how, like, I think a month ago, perhaps a smidge longer, I was like "Hey guys! uh, come join me on Patreon and I'm gunna make this great big project and it's gunna be super cool you're ...
Sober Sex (PODCAST)
In my last post, I mentioned that my recovery from COVID has been rough, but I didn’t really get into details. And even here, now, where I’m posting the photo/text updates I shared privately with my friends-only list on Instagram, I still don’t really express just how shockingly bad this has been for me and- by extension- Matt, who has to deal with me losing my fucking mind this last week.Honestly, it’s been scary and also really demoralizing. Like, I went through Space Camp, I graduate...
It is time. (VIDEO)
Winter is over when I can turn the external water supply back on 🙌 (If this collection of footage looks completely random to you, you probably live in a climate where your pipes don’t freeze)COVID has completely derailed my life for the last few weeks and honestly it’s been a rough recovery, both physically and mentally. Yesterday the sun came out, though, and I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass by to put my fingers in the dirt for the first time this season.Behold! What was the po...
Show Us Your Holes (VIDEO - Visible Mending)
Matt is an avid climber (indoor bouldering, specifically). Even though he's invested in pants specially made for the activity, he climbs so zealously that he regularly reduces them into scraps.After some small mending jobs, his pants were getting so threadbare that just attaching new patches would actually tear the jeans material, creating new rips right along the fresh repairs. It was time for some Heavy Duty Pants Reinforcing. I cannibalized fabric from his previous pair and used some left...
2005
Matt found some photos he took of me (on film!) in 2005.I was 21, an American spending her semester abroad in France while he was a 19-year-old student in England who had been reading my comics on LiveJournal for a couple years already.We met in London over a weekend, texted furiously back and forth on our flip phones after I returned to Aix-en-Provence, and then, once both our school programs had ended, we spent three weeks winding through France on our student rail passes and staying in a new ...
Look, it makes me happy, ok? (Art Post)
This is my first day of feeling comparatively better since I got knocked off my ass by Covid (first time around for me! I only coughed up a little blood, hardly worth mentioning U_U)You remember that I am obsessed with the late 1980s fantasy princess doll, Lady LovelyLocks, right? I've got that whole Instagram account documenting my totally healthy and normal collection of LLL artifacts and my own hand drawn fanart?Look at that. How do you see that kind of artistic perfection and not get obs...
I Still Stand By This (drama-alert)
(Cross-posting my essay from the Oh Joy Sex Toy Patreon! For patrons on both accounts, this one has some minuscule tweaking. See if you can spot it!)----------------Two years ago, Let's Talk About It debuted. This is the comprehensive sex and relationship book that Matt and I desperately needed when we were teens in the age of dial-up modems. More than a sex education book, it's really an introduction to communicating with the people in your life (whether they're platonic, romantic, ...
February Round-Up
What the hell happened last month? Let's recap.FebruaryNew eBook added! (🔒 Private!)Oh Joy Sex Toy: Volume One joins the collection of eBooks that Bookworm patrons get to download for their reading pleasure! There's now six books available, including titles that are way out of print or were never published at all.Consentacles & ConsenticlesA project two years in the making! This is a faux-Ancient Grecian illustration depicting the gods of consensual touch, both tentacle and testicle. ...
Lemony Snicket, The Tree
I squawked in delight when I spotted the beginnings of tiny white flower buds on Lemony Snicket, my potted Meyer lemon tree!January 29Her last two batches of flowers blossomed and died without producing any fruit, even though I diligently hand-pollinated them with an old paintbrush nearly every day. I shouldn’t get my hopes up for this batch but oh no, too late.February 2I’m also battling a particularly stubborn infestation of scale, which are these dumb little stationary flat bugs that bare...
Last Minute Pockets
In the 18th century, dresses had pockets. And I don’t mean, like, little pockets that can barely fit a chapstick. I mean, they had industrial-size, heavy-duty, strap-on pockets the size of bread bags that were tied on to the body separately from the dress itself, which simply had discrete slits cut in on the sides that the wearer would plunge their hand through in order to access the cavern bag hidden beneath. (Photo from the Thistle Thistle pattern) I know this because I am making one. But i...
Project: Joy
Ok! So!My collaborative fiber art project proposal was... very successful. Way more successful than I anticipated.In the end, 171 contributions were submitted by you all. Cool!!! ....Now.... how does one... begin turning 171 words into visual icons so they can be combined onto one enormous tapestry together?First, I copy-pasted over ever individual response into a spreadsheet, dividing the information up between the specific answer, name of participant, how they'd like to be credited (or not...
Consentacles & Consenticles
Two years ago my dear friend, Clare Bayley, made the mistake of commissioning me to illustrate an inside joke.At the time, she was still a new friend, still in the early stages of becoming-a-friend, and I absolutely choked on drawing her idea (THAT SHE PAID FOR [Well, "donated to two charities of my choice for", if you want to be accurate]) because my idiot brain was afraid I wouldn't do a "good enough" job and then she'd have no choice but to nip our beginning friendship...
January: Week Five
Sunday, January 29Dude, occasional drinking is where it is AT. It’s like, once every few months I get to feel like just ~magic~. People who drink regularly? They don’t even know. They’re immune. But when you only drink a handful of times a year, it just makes your body glow and it feels like you’re standing in this pleasant river of warmth and it’s magic, it’s just magic.Monday, January 30As he was ringing me up, my hair stylist looked up from the computer and apologized genuinely fo...
January: Week Four
Sunday, January 22Hoisting the Tig out of the shirt drawer. Her little arm all jutting out as she resists. She likes to nest in there, digging up the folded shirts, leaving carnage in her wake. Such a goblin. (She takes after my side of the family)Monday, January 23I finished my next short comic! I’m actually kind of proud of it? The writing and the page layouts, I mean. Less happy with the inconsistency of my drawings, but eh, whatcanyado? Get better, I guess. (UPDATE: This one) One of my goa...
COMIC: I Still Love My Exes
The following comic was made for Oh Joy Sex Toy's big fundraiser-thing in April, but I'm sharing it here with you guys because I want to and I can U_U Obviously, please don't share this one!¯\_(ツ)_/¯
January: Week Three
Sunday, January 15Matt has a bunch of friends he’s made at his climbing gym, but they’re all gym-friends not real-life-friends. UNTIL TODAY, that is. One of his gym-friends (who had just moved to the area a few months ago and therefore hasn’t built up a solid friend/support network yet) told Matt that his girlfriend of four years had just dumped him a couple days ago and he hadn’t seen it coming so he was pretty shocked and heartbroken. So Matt and I invited him to get lunch with us this...
One Day Left - Collaboration ACTIVATED (Your Response Needed)
UPDATE 2/3/23:Submissions CLOSED.---------------------------------------------------I went to bed with this Patreon still needing three more sign-ups before I could start the big collaboration project I had proposed, and this morning I woke up to that goal number not only having been met but actually surpassed. (I mean, surpassed by two. But still! Surpassed is surpassed 😤)Which means I actually have to hold up my end of the deal and turn your contributions into the biggest fiber art tapestry...
January: Week Two
Sunday, January 8Very domestic day! Laundry folding and then cooked a whole-ass chicken casserole to deliver to one of my Helioscope studiomates who is recovering from surgery. See? I can be a decent human being. Occasionally.Monday, January 9I hate how efficient the pomodoro technique is. I get a stupid amount of work done for 25 minutes and then I take a five minute break (in which I stretch and move my body, as pictured above), then I blast through another infuriatingly productive 25 minutes....
January: Week One
Every so often I do a daily self-portrait project for a set period of time. Once I did it a whole year but this time I’m gunna stick to just January. Every picture is taken on my phone with a remote timer in my hand.Sunday, January 1stFirst boba tea of the new year, hellllll yeahhhhhhh. I was filling out some of the Unravel sheets (see this post) and then I texted The Girls (Lucy Bellwood and Danielle Corsetto) about scheduling our next monthly Business Ladies meeting and then it turned out we...
