Jem DeSanti

Add the full text of your May letter here — paste it in and I'll format it.

I've been on Instagram since 2010. That's not a fact I say with pride exactly, but I don't say it with shame either. For a long time, it was just where I lived online — where I posted my zines, my jewelry, my process, my face. It was how people found me and how I found people.

And then, sometime in the last year, I deleted it. Not deactivated — deleted. Both accounts. The jemnifur personal account I'd had since 2010, and the Dark Parlour Society account I'd been carefully building. Gone.

This letter is about that, and about what came after. About moving into a smaller space. About what it means to document a practice without performing it. About the difference between making and marketing, and why I've spent so long confusing the two.

I've been noticing something lately — a lot of my friends are going through major life changes right now, at the beginning of this year. New jobs, new cities, new relationships beginning and old ones ending. It feels like everyone I know is in the middle of becoming something else.

I'm no different. January was a month of transitions for me too — in my practice, in my space, in the way I think about what I'm making and why.

It's December 31st at 7:31pm and I've already attended and left my "New Years Eve" party by myself at a great little place called Book Society in Berkeley where I sipped on a mocktail made in the "Great Gatsby" theme and left in the rain with two new books underneath my arm to start 2026 with.

I was dressed in Dark Parlour grandeur in a silk bias cut dress in the hue of a heavily oaked glass of chardonnay. My face was completely enshrouded in a thick layer of green fringe and topped with a 1940s hat, underneath it I adorned one of my favorite pieces I've made this year — one of my watch face chokers in black.

Now I sit on the couch eating leftover pasta, listening to jazz music and letting my thoughts wander to my next inspiration for the things I want to learn and make in January. 2025 has been one of those formative years. One of those years where you finally become aware of all the things that have been staring you in the face for decades and you're finally ready to do something about it.