On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about lettering as an art form with my guest Ciara Leroy.
Ciara is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who specializes in text-based work. A lifelong love of media informs the eye-catching, color-saturated, and message-based nature of most of her work. She is passionate about connecting art to community development and using creativity to build bridges for conversation.
This episode is sponsored by The Academy for Virtual Teaching.
Come find your people.
Teaching online can feel lonely when you’re figuring it out by yourself. It doesn’t have to be. The Academy’s free community gives you monthly expert seminars, live roundtables, and a warm circle of creative teachers cheering you on. Come find your people at academyforvirtualteaching.com
We begin this interview by talking about Ciara’s childhood. Her father, who was a doctor, supported her artistic interests by taking her to art stores, theater productions, and introducing her to renowned artist Bing Davis, who gave her her first set of professional pastels.
Ciara initially pursued biochemistry as a pre-med major following her father’s footsteps but decided to change her major to journalism with a publishing emphasis, which allowed her to pursue both writing and art through her minor. Ciara shared how she began her hand lettering journey during college by creating personalized notes for friends using the campus post office.
An example of Ciara’s secret word embroidery work.
After graduating during the 2008 financial crisis, she completed an artist residency in New York City as a writer, where she interned at a magazine. She then returned to Ohio, worked multiple jobs, and pursued opportunities in larger cities before eventually moving back to Lexington, Kentucky, where she began developing her hand lettering on Instagram.
Ciara discussed her journey from doing hand lettering as a hobby in college to building it into a business. She started with custom cards on Etsy and Instagram, then expanded to logo design and murals after receiving requests from clients. Ciara explained that while she had some experience with design software like InDesign from her journalism background, she now primarily uses Procreate on iPad with an Apple Pencil.
Ciara’s new book, Lettered in Thread, is out now with Storey Publishing.
Ciara shared her journey with embroidery, starting as a child at her grandmother’s house with felt craft kits in the 1970s. She revisited embroidery in the mid-2010s while working in non-creative jobs and seeking ways to make her lettering more three-dimensional. Ciara learned basic embroidery stitches from a friend’s workshop and began experimenting with combining hand lettering and embroidery, which led to her new book Lettered in Thread, which serves as a crash course in hand lettering and embroidery.
An embroidered piece, with lettering, by Ciara Leroy.
Ciara discussed her “secret word embroidery” technique, which originated from her 2021 solo gallery show “Things Left Unsaid” where she used translucent text on solid fabric to represent unspoken confessions. She explained how she later expanded the technique to patterned fabric in 2023-2024.
Ciara then described how her book with Story Publishing came about through a connection with author Christy Johnson, who featured her work in The Art of Embroidery Design. The book took nearly 3 years to complete as Ciara both wrote and illustrated the content herself, including diagrams and embroidery artwork.
I ask Ciara about two other significant art projects: an embroidery piece about gun violence following a mass shooting in her hometown, and a mural for Cincinnati Public Radio themed around freedom of speech.
And, of course, I ask Ciara to recommend great stuff she’s loving right now. Ciara recommends:
- We Are The Sickos!
- BBC Earth videos on YouTube
- Audiobooks of Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour, Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, and Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Keep up with Ciara on her website and on Instagram.
