Finding Soft Spots With Leonie Schepers

Leonie Schepers is an artist and designer who explores the female body through tufting. What started as a personal quest to embrace her own vulnerabilities, now results in works which inspire audiences with their honesty, consideration and - softness.

You might have seen her large scale tapestries or delightful Festive Vulvas around Eindhoven. They are a playful take on the most political of body parts, inviting us to rethink the relationships we have with our bodies and the beliefs we project onto them across generations.

Leonie was gracious enough to tell us more about her craft - the creative intimacy she found in a time of personal crisis, the value of putting yourself in the centre, the joys and struggles of sharing vulnerable art with the public and the cleansing symbolism of menstruation.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m an artist and designer. I make tapestries, big and small. I am also a creative at a collective in Eindhoven called Kont Klub. It’s about creating experiences for local artists to meet. I host an event called Slow Dates - kind of like speed dating but with a longer time duration. I always try to make it lighthearted, which maybe springs from a need I had myself. I’m an awkward person and, when I go to an art opening for example, it’s very difficult for me to talk to curators. I’m always searching - am I an artist? Am I a designer? I have a design background and then I did my Masters in Fine Art & Design, so I’m a bit in between. I understand very much the struggle of not knowing where you fit in.

Is the initiative supposed to help artists present their work to gallerists, or rather for them to connect with each other and collaborate?

It’s more for them to just meet each other on a low-key level and create an exchange. The upcoming edition is a queer & queer-ally edition. It’s a place for artists to be vulnerable. It’s about asking, how can we support each other? They may be lost or struggling financially, and somebody else might be in the same position which creates an environment of support.

What led you to becoming an artist and designer?

In 2016, I graduated from the Design Academy in Eindhoven. It mainly focused on user-based design. There always had to be someone on the other end of what we made. I learned that you, as the maker, are never as important as the outcome. So I would always put myself outside of the project. Then, when I was doing my Masters in 2020, my teacher asked me - why are you doing this? And I responded - it’s important. And they said - yes, but why is it important to you? And I couldn’t answer.

Then, Covid started and I also got diagnosed with diabetes. It was the perfect storm for a burnout, so I was forced to stay inside - both at home and in my head. I started doing point needling. The outcome didn’t matter to me - I thought nobody would ever see it, but I found peace when creating. It made me realise that I really miss the joy of the craft. So, I thought - okay, now I’m going to do something that I really feel I need to do. I started tufting, which is point-needling 2.0.

How did that process feel?

The machine goes at a certain speed so I was forced to slow down because you cannot work harder than the machine. The craft collaborated with the feel I needed in my body. I was still recovering and I noticed that I wasn’t in touch with my body anymore. I decided to revisit some of the vulnerabilities I had around it, and I called them Soft Spots. I wanted to look at my body as an old friend that I missed for a long time. I divided the process into three chapters - Menstruation, Size and Queerness.

Menstruation represents the things I wanted to keep hidden, as well as the process of understanding why I am hiding them. It started with hiding a tampon in school, and a classmate discovering it. They showed it to everyone and made fun of me for using a super+ size. It made me feel like, apparently, I’m having my period the wrong way. Then, from the age of fifteen I started hormonal contraceptives and, when I stopped, I started bleeding again for the first time in years. One of the tapestries I made, of a large-scale vulva with a fountain of blood bursting out, represents everything that I’ve kept inside and that can finally exist out in the open again.

How is your relationship to your cycle now?

I actually started hormonal birth control again, in close consultation with my GP. Sometimes I am scared of getting pregnant, so I opted for the hormonal injections which you get every three months. I decided that, if I feel mentally empty again - which was the issue in the past - then I will stop. That’s why I’ve been checking in with my body consistently, and every three months I ask myself - is this something that I still want? And based on that I get a new prescription.

Is there a strong connection between diabetes and your menstruation?

Yes. To my knowledge, there has not been a lot of research on it, and the medical practitioners whom I saw were never able to share enough information. But, in fact, I noticed that when my period would end then my sugar levels would really drop, which no one ever told me about. Now I know that during my period I need to take twice as much insulin.

I was introduced to your collection of “Festive Vulvas” during Dutch Design Week last year. Could you tell me a bit more about this project?

This project is a bit different from the others, because of how it started. It’s the big vulva that was supposed to be exhibited, but the gallery space didn’t allow for its size, so I suggested making smaller ones. You can see that every vulva has its own personality, some are bleeding, some are not… Then, during the exhibition, I had to write a little description for each, so I began writing this feminist text, but somehow it wasn’t clicking. I realised that I mainly just wanted to do this for fun, and I wondered - why can’t this artwork just exist without having a bigger meaning? Of course it has a meaning because people give it one, but I like the idea of - let’s imagine a world where you can just put a bleeding vulva on a wall because you enjoy it, without making it political.

In reality it will be political, because it is situated in the context of a world which makes it so. During Design Week, you could see that people were either super enthusiastic or uncomfortable. So, despite being such a “festive” and colourful piece, it still caused a strong reaction.

Your work heavily explores your relationship to your body. What have you found in this exploration?

I read a book called “Your Body Is Not An Apology” by Sonia Renee Taylor. She says that the space you occupy through the existence of your body, is a way to say “no” to the system that makes you want to hide it. I tried to look at my body through that lens. I grew up in the late 90’s/early 2000’s when the concept of “fatness” was very different. Your classmates get the same references so they call you fat, and you internalise all of that. There’s also intergenerational trauma - my mother was always obsessed with being skinny and her own negative perception of her body indirectly affected my own. The culture I grew up in taught me that my body was not worthy, so much that it became really difficult for me to look at it. So I started sketching my naked form with an objective eye, from different angles, capturing an intimate moment and then showcasing it on a large tapestry.

I wanted the tapestry to have a very positive and kind message. When I exhibited it, I played recordings of some conversations I had with my mom, edited together with audio snippets from movies. It was important for me to showcase that I was dealing with this feeling of double-shame. I love the body positivity movement - I think we should all be proud and show our bodies. But, sometimes, you’re not quite there yet, and you find yourself ashamed of feeling ashamed. But it’s okay to not feel okay. Now I lost a lot of weight because of medication and I’m getting a lot of compliments and I see that I like it, which makes me feel conflicted.

It’s not realistic to become a poster child for body positivity. It’s much more powerful and inspiring to show the journey of healing your relationship with your body, with all of the ups-and-downs it entails. It must have been very vulnerable to share that in front of so many people.

I was scared. I was red and shaking when thinking about everyone seeing it. The project was centred around me as a topic, so I started hesitating - is this actually important? Are there more pressing issues? I had all these doubts. When I look at this work in hindsight, I still think it’s a genuine story and a statement I endorse, but it makes me think about what it means to put yourself in the centre. What is the value in that? That could be a whole other conversation.

But, at the end of the day, it never ends up being just about you. Sharing those vulnerabilities gives strength and visibility to so many other people who might be feeling the same. What is the response you’ve been getting to your works?

People recognised themselves in them. That’s why I think it was really important to showcase the awkwardness I feel around these topics. It gave people this recognition that it’s okay to not feel okay in your body; and that it’s good to stay with those Soft Spots, stay with the feeling of vulnerability, and to search for what it means. That was the main message.

It’s been said that one of the functions of your art is to resist the patriarchy. Could you tell me a little bit more about how you go about that?

Being “tough” and knowing what you want is valued so highly in this society. When women started working, their ambition and the concept of feminism was seen as wanting to be more like men. But being a feminist is also about embracing the soft sides and seeing value in softness.

I try to be more open about these things, not just in my work, but in general. I was teaching last year for the first time, and I found it so difficult. I didn’t know what to do with the kids and I was really stressed. When I expressed it, the other teachers said - I’m so glad that you said that. My first year I was almost burnt out because everyone is pretending things are going so well. After admitting that, I received coaching which allowed me to enjoy my job again. So, if you are communicating and acknowledging that you don’t know everything, it’s a chance to learn and to connect with others, giving them the opportunity to help you. That fosters a culture of openness that is quite opposite from what patriarchy promotes.

What are you working on at the moment?

The tapestries I make are very tactile and people always want to touch them. I find this an interesting concept to play with. I want to make the works as touchable as possible. The image I have sketched for this will be very explicit, showcasing a woman’s body. It is a way of experimenting with the idea of boundaries and consent.

That’s almost like a social experiment. It reminds me a bit of Marina Abramović’s early performances.

You’re like the third person to tell me that. It’s interesting. She’s one of my favourite artists. Although I understand the comparison, I think she is definitely next-level. My idea is still a work-in-progress, but I’m excited to see what comes out of it.

Check out Leonie’s works at leonieschepers.com & @leonie_potatoparty

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