When my mother bought her first embroidery machine 10 years ago, I was extremely excited! My love of creating embroidery started with creating things for friends, and local Medieval Reenactment groups. However, that excitement wore off very quickly when I was shown the catalogs of the designs available for purchase. Almost everything was teddy-bears, flowers and "cutesy-cutesy" type stuff… I’m not the "cutesy-cutesy" type! I wanted young, dark and edgy-looking designs, but they just weren’t out there. As a result, my mother purchased an embroidery machine and software for me. I spent an insane amount of hours locked in my sewing room doing research online, and teaching myself how to digitize. I did all of this while trying to balance a 40 hour work week in corporate America. After a few brainstorming sessions, we decided to create and market our own designs. Esque was born. Since the "art gene" seemed to have skipped over me, I contacted a few artists whose work and style I liked, and asked them if they would like to contribute. I found some great people, and am very, very happy to be working with all of them.

So what does “Esque” mean? Well there’s no Webster’s Dictionary definition, but it’s something that both my mother and I have been saying for years along with “ish”. We seem to come up with ideas that might be similar to something, but not quite the standard, so we’d always say that something is “esque”. For example, Renaissance Period-Esque means it looks like it could possibly be from the Renaissance era, but not quite. As a result, it’s Renaissance Period-Esque. As for a company name... it sounds a lot better than “Ish”! LOL!

I am currently a special education teacher and administrator for a small private school in Rhode Island, and I have been working in this field for over 20 years. Arts and crafts have been a hobby of mine for a long time, and being creative has been a wonderful outlet for me to sort of decompress and take my mind off of the rigors of my day. Before I honed my career, sewing and crafting were great pastimes that actually saved me money. When holidays and other gift giving occasions would arrive, friends and family received something that was handmade.

My first home embroidery machine opened up a new world. Gone were the days when the simple straight sewing machine turned out plain, unembellished costumes, clothing and home decorator items. In fact, I wore myself out looking for things to embroider. When Chrissy joined the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. (SCA), I envisioned embroidering her gowns. Unfortunately, she turned her nose up on many of the designs I thought were reasonably appropriate. Last year I bought her an embroidery machine and the next thing I know, she was able to digitize many of my drawings. She now has many designs she likes and uses for her clothing and other items. Shortly after she became proficient with the digitizing software, we decided to share our art with the world.