My Blog

The arrival of Jelly Sandwich

Hi. I’m Grace. I’ve traveled a long journey to make it to Los Angeles where I currently reside. A strip mall city, which pings a familiar nostalgia to my childhood in Baltimore, Maryland.

Me, maybe 7.

I currently work as a stylist, but I am secretly an actress. I had a stint in writing, and released a book of poetry in November 2022, which I don’t want to leave behind.

My book on the shelf at Mast Books, NYC. Published by pois é in LA.

My shrink says I don’t have a passion that has depth, meaning that I get swept up in an identity that I don’t hold onto for very long. So, I’m starting a blog that may or may not have a lasting impact on anyone, even myself. I started my first blog in 2010 on a website called Tumblr which you all may be familiar with. The Substack of the late aughts and early 2010’s.

I have been putting off starting this newsletter because “everyone has one”, but I think about doing it often. I have a shopping rule that if I’m not sure about a purchase, I’ll leave the store, and if I’m still thinking about it days later I’ll go back begging on my knees for the item, crying, covering my eyes, handing over my card. Let’s think of that as this. 

I only started styling when I moved to LA, while I was in New York (and for all years prior) I was pursuing acting. I was also not a writer by any means. By the end of my time in New York and the very early days living in LA I had a lot to say. I wrote about it here, and here, and here too.

This won’t be another shopping newsletter, however the gift guide that I wrote last December pushed me to start a newsletter. The majority of people I know (and the general population) love a recommendation. We are living in a post-gatekeeping world. That’s not to say this will be a recommendation newsletter either. Mostly, I want to share stories about my life. I want to share the ones that I’d get in trouble for, too. Those probably most of all. 

I have spent a long time thinking of a name for this newsletter, mostly that’s what has taken so long to start in the first place. It was only an hour ago after seeing Ed Ruscha / Now Then at LACMA that I thought of this name. It feels random, but wrapped up in a pretty bow, as does this newsletter. It won’t be about a specific thing, and what’s more… it doesn’t have to be!!!

“Jelly” by Ed Ruscha, 1964.

While you’re here, you can expect musings about Los Angeles, a place I am massively inspired by and to my dismay, even more inspired by than New York (send in invisible ink) which my 16 year old self would be disgusted by. I have written much about LA, and want to continue to do so here. 

Stick around for recipes and bits I have been cooking, baking, buying at the farmers markets (sorry), and the fleas (two amazing things about LA). Poems, essays, prose (written by me, and also others I admire), ramblings about interiors, movies (“films” for all you annoying people), and of course fashion and research. 

Fashion Today, a store inside a strip mall on Hollywood Blvd and Vermont Ave.

Thanks for being here with me, and signing on to something that’s been all too vague, and is starting to become clear. 

Now that you’re here, I present to you: Jelly Sandwich. (please read in BIG letters on a marquee)

Love you,

xx (as they say in my business)

Grace

Self portrait, 2002.