For months since the pandemic started, two studios lay quiet: one by Stacey Hill in Manchester, and another by Mikhail “Mikey” Quijano and Erick Perez of Wolfe+Huntr in Marikina. Both spaces stood empty without the regular comings and goings of people or the simultaneous noise made by scissors, hammers, and various power tools.
When this project started in late 2020, it took some time for them to consider participating and working as collaborators. Stacey was taking some time away from her jewelry-making studio to mourn a personal loss, while Mikhail and Erick had kept Wolfe+Huntr, their limited-edition leathercraft brand, on pause since the first lockdown.
In their early chats, they joked about being rusty and “dusting off their tools and things.” That initial conversation helped Stacey become comfortable because she had been anxious about making jewelry again after such a long time. Mikhail and Erick saw it as an opportunity to get back into the groove of making, considering it had been months since they stopped accepting orders.
As collaborators, they talked about their personal experiences; and as makers, about wanting to make a difference in their communities. “It was clear to both of us that we had these shared feelings of shame and trauma,” says Stacey.
“It was clear to both of us that we had these shared feelings of shame and trauma.”
Stacey talked about the trauma of baby loss and feeling let down by the reactions of people that she knew. “I turned to people with awareness (on this issue), because there was a lack of awareness in the wider community about the topic and people didn’t want to talk about it. They didn’t know how to. They feel uncomfortable.” Dealing with these feelings on her own compelled her to start @oatcakesandotherhood on Instagram, where she shares about the grief and trauma of baby loss, infertility, and resources from the online baby loss and infertility communities.
For this project, she found these statistics in the UK: one in four pregnancies will end in loss during pregnancy or during birth, with infertility affecting around one in seven couples; one in a hundred women will experience recurrent loss; and around one in two hundred births will result in a stillbirth. In addition to this, there are at least 5,000 terminations for medical reasons (TFMR) per year.
She could empathize with the stigma and lack of support felt by others going through the same experience. “They hide their trauma and put on a brave face.” Hidden behind the smiles are the shame and stigma of an experience you’re unable to openly share in society.
For Mikhail and Erick, it was a different form of concealment. “It was the LGBTQ+ experience as gay men where we feel like, a chunk of our lives, we were forced to wear masks,” they shared. “And oftentimes, these masks really saved our lives because we had to face the world in a different way.” With the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression (SOGIE) Equality Bill, also known as the Anti-Discrimination Bill (ADB), yet to be made into law by the Philippine government, they continue to show up for their LGBTQ+ community and support the fight for the bill.
“It was the LGBTQ+ experience as gay men where we feel like, a chunk of our lives, we were forced to wear masks. And oftentimes, these masks really saved our lives because we had to face the world in a different way.”
What drew them closer in conversation was their shared appreciation of club culture. In it, people could express themselves through fashion and find safe spaces from society’s judgment. Stacey was inspired by the neon smiley face, originally designed for an insurance company in the 1960s and appropriated by the rave acid house scene decades later. Wolfe+Huntr, on the other hand, explored their bondage-inspired aesthetics further, having already created a fashionable collection of leather harnesses and masks for club events and parties.
Craft exchange
While waiting for Stacey’s pieces to come in the mail, Erick kickstarts his return to leather-making by creating a crown, with Mikhail describing it as “A nod to being your own royalty and expressing yourself.” Making that crown for himself also made Erick happy. They incorporated a tiara as a second piece from a previous collaboration. “Because we want to be a little extra,” Erick chuckles.
Mikhail explains that masks had a negative connotation for concealing the truth, with the LGBTQ+ community forced to hide behind all sorts of masks in order to live in peace. Now in the pandemic, it has earned a different meaning as an object that helps save lives.
The brass bull-ring they received from Stacey was very close to Wolfe+Huntr’s clean, geometric aesthetic. The neon crystal-shaped resin, on the other hand, posed a challenge to Erick, who is the lead designer and patternmaker. Structurally, he had to carefully customize a pattern to incorporate the piece. Aesthetically, they’d never used neon colors in their brand, but they took it as a challenge.
Collaborating with Stacey is the first of its kind for them. They took the time to understand her work and incorporate it with their leather pieces. “It’s quite a new experience for us, art-related, reaching out to Stacey and seeking her point of view,” says Mikhail, who handles their branding and communications. They had to strike a balance between staying true to their design and reflecting Stacey’s.
The project allowed them to reconnect with their Marikina-based artisans. They started their brand more than five years ago to support the city’s homegrown leathercraft industry. While they could afford to take a break from leather-making during the pandemic, Erick realized: “Wolfe+Huntr is our creative outlet but to those people we work with, it’s their livelihood.” Apart from that, they both missed being able to work with their hands and have their creative discussions and disagreements.
“Wolfe+Huntr is our creative outlet but to those people we work with, it's their livelihood.”
It was heartwarming for Mikhail to have Erick send him pictures of the works in progress finally coming from the Marikina workshop. “It was meaningful seeing an opportunity to get to work with them again.”
Far away in Manchester, Stacey hunkered down at home and created a space conducive for her to work in. She had some of her jewelry-making tools on hand, and left some of the bigger tools in her studio at the Manchester Craft and Design Centre.
She begins with the concept of a smiley face and expands it into a full vocabulary that represents various expressions of trauma, grief and shame. She creates a “Feelings” key to illustrate the feelings and emotions assigned to each face. From an excerpt in her artist statement, she wrote: “Reflecting upon my own experiences of grief during the pandemic, I was drawn to the fact that there are often no words that can convey how I was/am truly feeling. Often unable to reply to messages with nothing other than a simple emoji, relying on the same few repeatedly. Feelings takes the iconic smiley face as a pop culture reference point, to create a collection of interchangeable emojis which depicts some of these feelings more accurately.”
“Reflecting upon my own experiences of grief during the pandemic, I was drawn to the fact that there are often no words that can convey how I was/am truly feeling. Often unable to reply to messages with nothing other than a simple emoji, relying on the same few repeatedly.”
She starts sketching the pieces and cutting thin metal strips to see how they will look. Stacey also wanted it to be interchangeable, depending on the wearer’s mood or what they want to show. Mikhail and Erick sent her a variety of leather pieces that she could incorporate in her final work, taking one of their pieces and wrapping it across her mouth to express being silenced.
Stacey found that making her work, which consumed her for days to make the deadline, became so personal. She was glad to be part of it. “It was nice to collaborate with other people on something, and the supportive network that comes with it, a really positive experience to be involved in,” Stacey says.
Express yourself
Stacey, Mikhail and Erick wanted to reflect a part of their experiences and represent something beyond themselves. Through their creative work and advocacies, they wished to contribute to society’s changing attitudes towards mental health and the struggles that people like them have had to confront and endure.
Speaking up about her experience has helped Stacey navigate the grief by connecting to an online community during the pandemic. She explains that these experiences often result in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which could be left untreated and undiagnosed because of the stigma surrounding the topic. She adds, “But it’s also relevant to different kinds of trauma and anxiety, which can cause individuals to feel isolated.”
Getting back to her craft made her better for it. She wrote, “Returning to my work has given me part of my old self back, with something positive to focus my energy on. It has inspired me to start creating new work, giving me a sense of hope and purpose for the future.
Advocating on these topics has provided a sense of empowerment. I hope this work will help to provide a starting point to meaningful conversations, increasing awareness and contributing towards breaking taboos and reducing the stigma felt by those facing these realities.”
“Advocating on these topics has provided a sense of empowerment. I hope this work will help to provide a starting point to meaningful conversations, increasing awareness and contributing towards breaking taboos and reducing the stigma felt by those facing these realities.”
Erick and Mikhail placed their business on hiatus because they both felt that leather was a luxury and that people would be spending on necessities or saving up for emergencies during the pandemic. However, Erick shares, “After this collaboration, Mikhail and I had a talk that maybe it’s time to go back to Wolfe+Huntr.”
From concealing the truth, it has become a canvas to present the many facets of who they are. It also dawned on Mikhail that they regained their sense of creative expression in the weird and seemingly frivolous pieces that they made. “It’s also essential to be able to express yourself. But more than our craft being an expression of ourselves, other folks also depend on our pieces to express themselves.”
“It’s also essential to be able to express yourself. But more than our craft being an expression of ourselves, other folks also depend on our pieces to express themselves.”
They were equally surprised at how the big, wild crown worked beautifully with their concept of expressing themselves. Mikhail shares,“It was a new thing that came up that wasn’t part of the original plan, and that it just flowed naturally.”
To uncork these hidden feelings and reveal significant parts of themselves through their craft has not only given them space to breathe, but a lifeline to express their full, complex, multifaceted, and beautiful selves.
