August Phoenix Mercantile

I am a self taught textile artist in Portland, Oregon. I am most well known as a hatmaker, although as of 2024 I have moved on to other endeavors.

I have always been focused on ‘making old things new again’ and can barely remember the last time I bought anything new. I prefer working in wool, linen and brocade that I find in thrift stores and glean from the cutting room floors of my textile friends. Applique and paint are my favored forms of textile embellishment as they are both the most efficient method of achieving large scale ornamentation. My most recent works are available at Drifa’s Leap.

I also write. My travels (https://davenotravels.blog/) have inspired both my textile work and my attitudes towards material sustainability and conserving pieces of the past. Some of my journals are now integrated into a travel app called GPSMyCity.com. I am working on a retrospective of my hatmaking which I hope to publish in 2026, as well as a personal memoir written in the genre of a historical fiction. When I am not sewing or writing, I am learning new skills which include sight-reading music, and learning to play a clavicord as well as an instrument called a vielle de la rue (hurdy gurdy).

Creativity takes a myriad of forms…

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Languages and travel:

I am an English speaker with significant foreign language deficits. I can say “hello”, and ask a question – only to find that I cannot understand the answer :/

I had a fear of flying until I turned 50, so I spent the last 20 years making up for lost time. My first off-continent experience was Venice during Carnival in 2009. My subsequent travels followed the Muslim occupation/influence of Europe, which took me to Italy (Florence, Venice, Genoa); Spain (Toledo, Cordoba, Granada); Turkiye (Istanbul, Bursa) and a circumnavigation of Morocco. My most recent excursion was to France, where I rode a mechanical elephant in Nantes, explored Roman ruins in Santes, slept in a chateau in Niort, explored French-American history in La Rochelle, and was mistaken for a local at the medieval city of Carcassonne.

Domestically, I chased my mother’s family history in Colorado (Gunnison, Silverton, Durango, Montrose), traveling by train, wearing 1910 traveling clothes, and lodging in historic hotels and B&Bs. In Chicago I embarked on a self-guided architectural tour of Frank Lloyd Wright properties. I have also been to Canada by car (British Columbia and Saskatchewan) and Alaska by ferry (Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Haines).

Sustainability and diversity:

I try to maintain the smallest possible ecological footprint. I live and work in the smallest and most energy efficient apartment possible. Not owning a car, I travel locally by bus and on foot. I have forsaken air travel and I now only visit places I can get to by train and bus. I only buy second-hand; I treat thrift stores as a sort of lending library – buying what I need and donating it back after the object has served its purpose but is still useful to others.

My craft follows suite. Tools, textiles, even threads and yarns are acquired as second use materials as much as possible. My goal this year is to learn to sew on my treadle machine – to recreate 1900s garments on a 1908 machine, but also to sew in the absence of electricity.

In the art and living history sectors that I spend time in, I encourage, promote and try to protect the voices of those who need to be heard during these times of extremist ideology. I believe that art and history will save us, but only if we are brave enough to stand together to protect the people and ideals that are most important to us.

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