There Is Only Make.

if you're looking for me...

2011-03-31T00:15:00.000-04:00

Season Change.

2010-04-03T00:08:00.010-04:00

The first pallet of Michigan's signature summer brew, Bell's Oberon, came rolling off the truck this week. We have been using the same Oberon sign for the last few years, so I decided to put together a new one.

I painted the sun and sky on black foam board and added the mosaic look with black paint on the end. Then I used a very technical combination of miscellaneous cut foam board pieces and hot glue to give the sign a 3/D look.

So I've had summer on the brain lately-- and for that reason I was shopping around this week for a vacation spot, and I booked the perfect place. Wilderness State Park is at the very top of the mitten, just to the left of the Straits of Mackinac. The park has miles of trails, a traditional campground and a handful of secluded beach-front cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 30's.

The cabins were already booked through the summer-- with the exception of one, which still had a couple of nights open on the tail end of Labor Day Weekend. The cabins sleep anywhere from 4 people to bunkhouses for 20+ with hardwood floors, wood burning stoves, and lovely rustic furniture. Each one even has an outhouse and water supply-- considering we usually pop a tent in the middle of nowhere, this place is the Hilton in comparison.

image credit: wildernessstatepark.net

Perhaps the best part about this cabin is that its just a quarter mile east of this amazing stretch of archipelago leading out to Waugoshance Point and Lighthouse. The water is shallow enough to hike out to the Point, canoe or kayak.

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/odalaigh/3524713435/

Plans make this rainy/windy spring Saturday much more bearable.

Tote it up!

2010-04-02T23:37:00.004-04:00

I recently completed an artistic project that was neither a print or sign! Whenever I try something new I realize that I don't stretch my boundaries often enough and that when I do I have a total blast. This time around I dusted off my sewing supplies in honor of Sarie's first birthday. The project came right off Etsy-- its called a Discovery Tote. The gist here is that you have a flat space for imaginative play that folds up into itself for easy travel.

I used store-bought felt for the forest floor, trees, and little Sarie-- and an old shirt I have been holding on to for entirely way too long for the water. (A case of really cute but not flattering) The plush parts have batting in them-- I also stuffed some batting throughout the mat for that rolling hills look. When I sewed on the flannel back I added felt tabs. I finished it off with some chunky yarn strung through the tabs so you can....

fold

up!

I connected with this idea immediately because I loved Fisher Price Little People as a kid. LOVED. I have very fond and vivid memories of this Main Street set in particular.

I get a little weepy just looking at it.

One Fish, Two Fish

2010-04-02T22:15:00.003-04:00

I forgot to bring my camera to any of my first classes-- and its a mistake I won't repeat again. The prints my students made were amazing and I had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people.

Melissa of Over the Luna made this screen print. She started by saturating the entire canvas in a dreamy swirl of orange and yellow. Then she went in with blue on top-- the fish were blocked out with the adhesive stencil so the oranges from underneath came through. The complimentary colors really make this print pop!

I'm teaching Screen Print Panels again on Sunday, May 2nd. Save the date!

A Very Blue Weekend

2010-03-28T21:22:00.002-04:00

I taught my first round of screen printing courses at Blue House Ann Arbor this weekend! On Saturday we printed on t-shirts and tanktops using the oh-so DIY embroidery hoop method. This method is screen printing at its most basic-- use pantyhose, and old embroidery hoop, and some elmer's glue to create an image on your screen, then fill with ink and print! Results with this super-DIY process vary greatly, but is fun to experiment with nonetheless.

Today we covered two-color adhesive stencil screen prints (the same process I use for my own work) and we had a blast making eye-popping goldfish, serendipitous mushrooms, and a lovely flower in growing sequence.

All in all a very successful weekend! Thanks to everyone who popped in to learn printing--it was wonderful getting to meet and know you!

Sneak Peek: Handmade @ Blue House

2010-03-19T00:02:00.017-04:00

Good morning, everyone! Tomorrow marks a very special day-- Blue House Ann Arbor is hosting its inaugural event, Handmade @ Blue House, an afternoon jam-packed with fantastic talent. We hope you'll stop in, check out this amazing new community space, and support your local economy. Has the lovely weather nipped you with a spring cleaning bug? There will be art work of every stripe, style and color palette to throw up on your walls or line your shelves! Are you looking to add a little zip to your wardrobe as we stroll into spring? Jewelry and handbags will be plentiful! From stationary to coasters and everything in between, this event features a wealth of diverse makers from across the entire Metro-Detroit area.

In an effort to lure you over to the Blue House tomorrow, here's a special sneak-peek of almost half of this event's vendors!

Elana Levine

Little Sister Designs

Vesonite, Peridot Green Eyes Necklace

$50.00

This necklace, measuring about 18 1/2 inches long, has a sterling silver flattened oval/diamond link chain. The pendant, measuring about 1 inch long, starts with a tiny faceted rondelle of peridot that connects to a brushed sterling silver ring. More peridot rondelles have been wire wrapped along (and a few even dangle above) the top of the circle, creating an umbrella over a tiny, faceted briolette of vesonite, that dangles in the middle of the circle. The green eye...the spotlight. Two more peridot rondelles adorn either side of the sterling silver lobster clasp. All wire and headpins are sterling silver, as well. The length of this necklace can be resized upon request.
_______________________________________________

Terri Graham
Miss Mossy

Vintage Relish Set Live Moss Terrarium
$35
Mid Century Relish Set serves as an unique live moss terrarium.
______________________________________________________

Sherri (Green) Carroll
sparklepants industries

8x10 print
$24

each collage is made up of little tiny bits of hand torn papers (maps, book pages, etc...) and ephemera. quite a bit of my current stock of book pages date back to the 1890's!!!
_____________________________________________________

Rania Khalil
gold necklace: 40$
_______________________________________________________

Nicole Ray
Sloe Gin Fizz
Sub(tract) Housing
$22

it's funny what a few subtractions can do to a home. This is a print of an original drawing that I digitally colored. Sized at 8"x10" for easy framing.
______________________________________________________

Kate Kehoe

Chicaloo Photography & More
Beer Depot Coasters
$12.00
_______________________________________________________

Karen Mitzel

TheJuneBride

Silk dyed Easter Egg Kit

$10 (at the Mar 20 show), $12.50 (online, includes shipping)

"A super-easy, eco-friendly, reusable, tidy and surprisingly fun kit to make beautifully decorated Easter eggs like the ones in the photos. Uses locally-sourced recycled silk ties! There will be a basket of eggs dyed using this kit at the show so you can see first-hand some of the astounding results! Featured twice in 2010 Etsy Finds daily emails, and sure to be a hit with your whole family!"
______________________________________________________________

Jill N. Hamilton-Krawczyk
Barrel of Monkeys

www.barrelofmonkeys.etsy.com

Jackalope Pocket Mirror or Bottle Opener/Keychain
$4.00
A colorful design featuring the ever elusive Jackalope. Measures 2.25 inches and is available in two options-- a pocket mirror or a bottle opener/keychain combo.
________________________________________________

Jenni Beamer

TinkerDot Designs

tinkerdotdesigns.etsy.com

'Dear Possibilties' 12x12 mixed media canvas

$60
Handpainted gallery wrapped canvas using acrylics, paper and lots of attention to detail! The saying "Dear possibilities, I'm listening..." mixed with the color and detail will hopefully leave you feeling inspired and ready for the World!
_____________________________________________________

Jennifer Ives
Polka Dot Belt Bag

www.ThePursery.Etsy.com

The Polka Dot Belt Bag is made from a black, grey and yellow dot
fabric with a sturdy cotton grey lining. There are three interior
pockets and a magnetic snap closing.

Why it's special: The unique color combination of the big polka dots
catches attention. It's fun but classy. The black leather trim adds a
bit of an edge. Excellent for Spring and to spice up a black sundress.

12” Top opening from seam to seam
12” Tall
14” Wide across the bottom width
4” Deep
12.5” Drop on the shoulder strap
______________________________________________________

Jannie Ho
Chickengirl Design
Vroom Note Pad
$6
50 sheets, 4" x 6" notepad with original illustration by Jannie Ho. Makes note taking alot more fun!
____________________________________________________

Courtney Fischer
Courtney Fischer Jewelry
Moss Cuff
$22
Copper cuff with layers of mossy green patina
______________________________________________________________

Christine Wilson
Christine's Beadworks (http://www.christinesbeadworks.etsy.com)
Stanley Cup Redwings Beaded Bottle Cap Pendant
$35
Made from a recycled Labatt's bottle cap, featuring the Redwings Stanley cup win in 1936, this beaded beauty can be worn as either a brooch or a pendant.
______________________________________________________

Amanda Schott

dang argyle

London Calling Bag

$42

A charming bag, made of vintage lime green fabric, and features a vintage tea towel as its focal point. Yowza! Poppy colors in a perfect size to hold all your dang goods this Spring.
________________________________________________________________

You'll find a wealth of information at this event too-- whether you're interested in learning a new skill, looking for a place to make or connect, or are shopping around for events to add to your social calendar, you'll find it all on Saturday.

See you there!

My favorite project of all

2010-03-10T21:49:00.003-05:00

Oh, little blog-- where did the weeks go?
Strap yourself in, I have lots of ground to make up for!

I have long maintained a love/hate relationship with living in a four-season climate—meaning I hate it in the winter, am over the moon for the first days of spring, take full advantage of the summer, and mourn with the changing trees in fall.

This time around winter has been crazy busy-- normally this season drags by in the snowy north, filled with cold mornings scraping the car windows, white knuckle drives to work, and daily musings about why on earth I live here. I'm happy to say that this time around, winter was a complete blur. I hardly noticed the snow, and barely had time to miss the sun until I realized last week that it was suddenly beginning to make appearances!

My busy winter has everything with do with my work—I haven’t been printing until very recently, but have had a plethora of other lovely projects come my way. As many of you know, I have started working with Blue House Ann Arbor-- a sublime handmade studio created by an amazing woman named Siobhan Lyle. Blue House's mission is to be a sort of one stop shop for local artists and crafters. Siobhan re-imagined a graceful old home on Main Street, turning it into a place to create, gather, shop and learn. I have been fortunate enough to have a part in almost all of those ends-- I have been doing some signs for the studio, am selling my work in the shop and at its inaugural event: Handmade at Blue House, and, best of all-- I get to teach.

At the risk of sounding a little hippie dippie, I will say the act the printmaking-- the many, many steps that lead from start to finish, keep me sane. There's been a lot of attention paid lately to flow -- the art of being so fully immersed in one's work that focus, joy and concentration is at an all time high. It’s almost like meditation in a way, but with the focus on your work instead of yourself. I find this flow in printing constantly-- it’s a way of making that is simply set up, through the act of being process driven, physical, repetitive, and problem solving in nature, for this level of absorption to take place.

There are lots of reasons why I fell in love with printmaking and enjoy teaching it. Flow is central. Printing is also unique in that its history is just as much trade and craft as it is fine art. It operates within a set of rules, uses a wide and enticing variety of tools and materials, and follows a sequence. As someone who has always struggled to say “this piece of art is done” I love printing because it decides for me. You make decisions early in the process and live with them at the end—that resonates much more clearly with my personality. In fact, I have kind of brought that process over to anything I make. If I make a sign I draw out four or five plans first, making all of the choices—color, font, text size, before I start. By making all of my choices right away, I reconcile my imagination with my somewhat Type A personality.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you find yourself in a creative slump, or think you’re not that creative to start, give printmaking a try. If you’re in the area, consider giving it a try with me. :)

Oh yeah--

2010-01-25T19:12:00.008-05:00

I also have a day job! Here's some signs celebrating early 2010 holidays.

The manliest sign I've ever made. I have no idea what those X's and O's mean-- I just copied them from a Google search. This sign is so busy it drives me nuts, but after making painstaking grass for fifty years last week I was somewhat forced into commitment.

The girliest sign I've ever made, and by far the most pink I've used... ever. On anything. I did have a blast making the feathers though.

A metallic and dolphin gray cardstock "disco ball" -- part of our New Year's display. This took approximately 55 large hot glue sticks.

An icy-toned board that accompanied said disco ball. The '5' is 40 feet high (almost)

These are all from the last few weeks-- we don't celebrate holidays annoyingly early like most grocery stores-- we don't have the space!

Speaking of work, my good friend and former coworker, Adam, is currently in the midst of an epic Great American RV tour with his lovely boyfriend, Joel. They're keeping a really amazing little blog of their journeys at The Bunny and the Burrow. If you're longing for a road trip, they're a great pair to live vicariously through.

Projects: Art Wall

2010-01-23T02:04:00.004-05:00

The wonderful Katie Stephenson contacted me a few months ago about a project she was starting called Art Wall. I am a huge fan of cluster groupings of work in home design (I think its a fun way to add presence to your collection and to a room rather than a few pieces scattered around) so I was super excited. I had no idea what the finished site would look like, so when Art Wall went live in early November I was floored.

The home page-- illustrated by the super talented Jessica Gonacha Swift! I love Art Wall's tagline: Don't Decorate, Curate! --its so in the spirit of collecting meaningful original work.

In December, the Family Room went live, and my Mesas print was featured-- see it on the bottom left?

Clicking on each item takes you to an artist bio and a link to purchase!

Katie also runs a blog (this link will take you to an interview with moi) and and the site has lots of other features-- even an inspirational flickr group!

In the spirit of this project, I hope to be sharing some art walls in my place in the coming weeks (whenever the grouchy winter Michigan sky cooperates)

Thank you for the wonderful opportunity Katie! Speaking of opportunities, I have one to announce next week!

Projects: Craft Hope

2010-01-21T22:20:00.004-05:00

I feel as though I owe you, my three or four dwindling readers, an explanation for the fact that my blog posting performance has been slack as of late. The truth is that I have been participating in all sorts of wonderful projects this month. My plan is to share them with you over the course of the next week!

The first is Craft Hope. I came across a link to Craft Hope a few days after the first terrible images of Haiti started pouring in, so I set aside a few prints to donate. I really loved playing a small part in what started as a tiny seed of a project and grew in such an incredible and exponential way. As you're reading this you will be happy to know that Craft Hope has raised over $20,000 for Doctors Without Borders, and they are so flooded with generous donations that their team can barely keep up. All of this in less than a week. Can you believe that? I am stunned by the generosity of those who make and appreciate handmade-- and absolutely shocked that a simple Etsy site has done so much good.

The Craft Hope Etsy Shop is an ongoing project-- I hope that it will continue to raise record-breaking funds for medical care in Haiti long after the cameras have packed it in.

So that's numero uno. Stay tuned!

A Very Handmade Christmas 2009 Edition

2009-12-28T12:51:00.006-05:00

Introduction:

There's this funny joke Jim Gaffigan does about when you catch onto something too late. In his version, he has just watched a movie that came out 5 years ago, and when he's like "whoa, I just saw (insert old movie here) and it blew my mind!" everyone else is over it and not excited. -- and he says "yeah, but I still want to talk about it!"

That might not have translated well, but its still how I feel about this super late Holiday post!

So you may remember last year when I scored big at the family Christmas when I was presented with one of my Grandfather's famed cutting boards? This year did not disappoint either. My mom had my name, and had been making this (and keeping it a secret from me) for the last few months:

(click!)

This is a hook rug tapestry made from hand dyed wool strips looped through a the large kind of mesh/woven base-- I hardly know how to describe it myself, its that amazing. All I know is that from the moment I opened the box it looked like some kind of amazing heirloom folk-art relic, and that I can't stop looking at it long enough to know where to put it!

This particular pattern called to my mom a bit because she has three girls who left the nest. The birds in the image are carrying bittersweet.

I took handmade Christmas to a different level this year. Normally I have the time (sort of!) to make lots of stuff, but this year I gave away plenty of handmade gifts from others-- some towels made by Lish went off to my Grammie, a Vermont sugar shack print by Melanie for my Grandpa, amongst others. I ordered lots of t-shirts off Threadless that support amazing designers and some jewelry from fellow Etsians.

I received lots of handmade gifts too. Some earrings from Rag Trader from my sister, Lisa. An exquisite bowl from my other sister, Brooke -- carved by an artist in Austin from a solid piece of stone with snail fossils in it. (!)

I didn't take the Handmade Pledge this year or anything (and have to admit, I did include a sprinkle of Trader Joe's, Target, and Ann Arbor's super sweet fair trade warehouse Orchid Lane, into the mix, but I did give more handmade items this year than I have since I was 10 years old and didn't have any money of my own!

Holiday Show Recap: Part 2

2009-12-13T14:47:00.003-05:00

So we loaded up the wagon last Friday and headed to the windy city for my very first Renegade Craft Fair. We stayed right downtown (at kitschy/cheap wonderland: the Ohio House) After immediately hitting the Michigan Ave. H&M (we forgot to bring hats, gloves, scarves etc) we were adequately warm and ready to hang out.

(looks cold, huh?)

My sister Lisa and her husband Brad came to town too, so we all went out on Friday and had some deep dish and beers-- we didn't Yelp it up before hand and ended up at the local racetrack betting bar, a beer cafeteria, and a hotel restaurant-- but had a great time nonetheless! Chris and I found increasingly better food and drink as the weekend wore on!

We got up bright and early on Saturday and headed for the show just a few minutes away in Wicker Park. Pulaski Park Fieldhouse is a beautiful old community building with Eastern European architectural details-- a wonderful place for a show!

Here's my table in the morning-- lots of natural sunlight in this venue!

I had a little time to shop on Sunday morning--this show had over one hundred and fifty vendors-- and my favorites were the printers, of course. I got plenty of loot, but my absolute favorites were concert posters from Spike Press. They were selling slightly irregular/botched hand screened posters for $5-- considering I really only hang the misprints of my own work up, I thought they'd fit right in!

picked up this poster for the National with super fun hanging clothes and lovely shades o'green!

and one for Rogue Wave with gold gates!
(photos from spike press' site on gigposters)

also picked up a little letterpress note card from Michelle at Ann Arbor's own Elevated Press (which I framed and stuck up on wall)

(photo: elevated press)

We took off for home on Monday, and I got right to work putting together the Etsy sale (going on now!-- Buy One Get One!) and have been cleaning and organizing my supplies and inventory since.

I have lots to blog about in the coming days and weeks-- a few local projects, an online feature, and plans rolling into next year. See you next time!

Holiday Show Recap: Part 1

2009-12-12T12:34:00.012-05:00

I sold prints at two holiday craft shows this season, and had a blast at both!

First was Detroit Urban Craft Fair on November 21st. I have only one lousy camera phone shot from this show because it was absolute crafty madness from open to close. I sold so much work that I had to ask for backup frame delivery service to the venue, (thanks to my friend Ms. Going) where I framed woodcut prints at my table for the better part of the afternoon. I had purchased a batch of frames for DUCF and Renegade, and left at the end of the day with one frame from that entire batch.

My table was right between Phantom Limb's incredible paper goods:

(wouldn't these little library pockets make the best little cards to go with gifts?!)

and My Vintage Kitschen (lovely applique flour sack towels):

Both of these ladies will be at Holiday Crafternoon next weekend with a handful of other wonderful vendors-- if you're in the area and have some last minute shopping to attend to, I highly recommend you stop by!

Just prior to this show I decided to start taking credit cards, and while I don't have a system perfected for taking them yet (this is where I justify buying an iphone) I saw a huge leap in sales.
Handmade Detroit has really put indie art in Michigan on the map, and I'm so happy they gave me the opportunity to be a part of the community they've created this year.

Here's a video from the show!

Detroit Urban Craft Fair from Final Five Productions on Vimeo.

After DUCF I rushed back to work to prepare for the Thanksgiving Pilgrimager. Trader Joe's gets absolutely bananas this time of year-- in the art dept. we rush around like mad little elves to get signage and decor out for two flyers inside of three weeks! Here's my vestibule design for Thanksgiving, complete with a barely visible 8 yard burlap canopy!

I had so much fun arranging the table to look like a messy kitchen-- lots of vintage kitchen bits mixed in with baking and cooking products!

After Thanksgiving I got right to work on prints for Renegade Handmade. My most successful print of this group was a bird in a tree carried over from my woodcut edition. These all but vanished the first day of the show-- and I'm already planning to bring them back in the future!

Last Friday we packed the car to the gills and headed to Chicago for the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale! Expect to hear all about it tomorrow!

and the winner is...

2009-12-07T23:40:00.003-05:00

Buy One / Get One!

Now through December 19th, every print (in the freshly updated shop!) is Buy One Get One Free!
Just buy the more expensive of the two prints you'd like, and include the other in the Message to Buyer. Mention that you read There Is Only Make and I'll throw in a free surprise!

The two holiday shows I participated in were absolutely wonderful! Expect a full recap later this week!

cha-ching!

2009-11-19T22:06:00.004-05:00

Allow me to create a hypothetical situation. Say there's a recession-- no, economic downturn-- no, depression and you need to buy some holiday gifts, but you'd also like to get a little something for yourself (because you work hard, dammit) and you will also happen to be in Detroit this weekend?

May I suggest you print out this little coupon and bring it to me on Saturday at the Detroit Urban Craft Fair? Then you can pick out one print for a friend, and one for yourself on the house, negating all possible feelings of self-indulgent guilt.

Please note, this deal only applies to my table. No other vendor at DUCF will value this coupon and they might look at you like you have a screw loose if you try to give it to them. The part that says All Things Grow = me only.

If you are an ink miser, like myself, feel free to shrink the coupon itty bitty teeny tiny or print it in just black. I don't mind. If you are out of ink (also me) you can simply tell me you'd like to use the.. what's a good name... sherbet colored coupon and I will honor that as well. Its greener anyway. :)

In summary, I'm going to reiterate previous posts and ask that you jot down your holiday shopping list tomorrow, wake up bright and early on Saturday, and proceed to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair. Do not pass Go, unless, of course, Go is on your way to the Majesitic at 4120 Woodward Ave. Detroit Michigan. If so, then feel free to collect that $200, you'll be glad you have it when you see the wealth of talent there. /end extended methaphor.

For a preview of the goods, stop in at DUCF's website or check out Detroit bloggers Perfect Laughter.

See you there!

How to create a fully functioning print studio in a 1200 square foot apartment you also live in

2009-11-14T22:14:00.007-05:00

reimagine your rooms.

(hint: you'll need twine and clothespins)

a sneak peek!

I'm getting ready for DUCF this weekend! I continue to be amazed tonight at how, nine years later, I'm still so in love with making prints.

Thanks for supporting my work and allowing me to keep on keepin' on.

Sales on the Brain

2009-11-12T23:39:00.002-05:00

I have a favor to ask. I'm starting to look ahead to online holiday sales and I'm hoping to conduct a little consumer market research first. I have mentioned that I am planning a week and a half sale of awesome online, and I'm wondering what type of sale I should offer. There's a poll to the right with a few options-- if you would take a moment to tell what kind of sale you find most enticing I would greatly appreciate it! Any comments you have on what you think works or doesn't work would also be wonderful as well!

I have hosted one online sale before-- a buy one, get one last winter. It went really well, and I'm inclined to throw a repeat, but I'd like to check around first. I'm curious to see if the sale type that wins is actually the one that will save potential shoppers the most money. Would you rather have free shipping on the goods your really like, or would you rather walk away with a lot more loot? Or take a discount on your whole order?

Maybe I'll do two days of each kind ;)

Back on the Social Networking Horse

2009-11-11T22:41:00.004-05:00

I have decided to return from a slight (ok, several year) hiatus from social networking. You can now find me on Facebook.

You can tune in there to find updates on shows, sales, and new work! If your friend request has been sitting in my inbox since 2007 I deeply apologize.

In case you're here to find out about shows, next up is Detroit Urban Craft Fair! Click on fellow TJ artist Angela Duncan's sweet poster to visit the website and check out the amazing vendors Handmade Detroit has carefully selected to blow your holiday budget!

See you there!

I'm Putting Etsy on Notice.

2009-11-07T16:46:00.009-05:00

I'm going to steer this blog toward the dark side for a moment, I hope you don't mind. The more I progress into the adulthood, the more I realize that I am a naive idealist. I grew up in a small town and I'm gullible. I believe people will be honest. I'm typically not skeptical of anything or anyone, and when the curtain is pulled back and the inner workings exposed, I'm always shocked and angry. Such is the case with Etsy.

When I first joined Etsy, I pictured a perfect network and community-- thousands of people in thousands of living rooms and studios around the world, making handmade items. Vintage sellers as people who are pulled toward finds, toward old things with stories. Maybe I have an overactive imagination, or am just a really visual thinker, but this is what I picture when I visit a shop, when I think of the site. In my mind's eye I see Etsy exactly as they want me to, with little cartoon drawings of bears knitting scarves and birds and featured sellers who make careers out of work they're passionate about.

I see this:

This is not the truth. Etsy has a seedy underbelly of users who are exploiting the site and its traffic of handmade and vintage customers. They're selling items as vintage that are most definitely not. They're selling cheap fishnet stockings and calling them 'craft supplies'. They're selling Olive Garden gifts cards and "vintage" plates from Anthropologie. They're buying cheap clothes on wholesale made in Asia and calling it a handmade sweater. This is exactly what Etsy isn't about, right? Mass production, imported bear figurines and Forever 21 sweaters are not what I signed up for. This is the figurehead of the handmade movement for all intents and purposes, and its becoming a dumping ground and a sham. I had no idea. I was gullible.

So you'd think that this isn't Etsy's fault, that people are hosting garage sales in their shops with items that are neither handmade, vintage, or supplies. That people are misrepresenting what they're selling. But Etsy is responsible. If they make these rules, they need to follow them. They need to enforce their own standards. They're not.

I would never had started selling on Etsy had it been billed as a place for online garage sales and mass produced garbage. Last I checked, that's what eBay is for. My work is inexpensive, but that's not the kind of venue I want it in. I pay for Etsy's services with the understanding that they will provide the kind of place they promised.

I know its a free market-- that if I don't like the fact that Etsy is ignoring their own rules that I can go to many of the various sites popping up that provide identical services to sellers. The problem is that I'm already highly invested in Etsy. My merchandise bags and business cards are all stamped with my shop address on Etsy. I have regulars who buy from my shop, and I have a history of positive feedback that makes future buyers confident that they can trust me. To go elsewhere at this point would be very expensive.

So I wonder what Etsy's problem is, and there are two possible answers. The first possibility is that they simply don't have the staff to investigate or remove items that are inappropriate or flagged. I take issue with this reason because I continue to hear that Etsy is experiencing record traffic and profits. Its obvious the site is growing and will continue to grow-- and they should be able to hire the workforce to manage it, and keep up with its mission.

The second possibility is that these items and sellers, no matter how inappropriate, are good for Etsy's bottom line. Listings, whether legit or not, earn Etsy 20 cents. The sale of an item makes Etsy a commission no matter what that item is. Maybe they are turning a bit of a blind eye toward these items.

I do know that this stinks, either way. I feel like a bit of an idiot for buying into the image Etsy is offering. I know that if people have to wade through a sea of garbage to find my work that they won't bother. I know that if Etsy can't get it together they're going to get a reputation as a worthless place to try and find anything handmade. Everyone who invested in Etsy, in its mission, will be out of luck.

It seems like they have a limited amount of time in which to turn this ship around before it all starts moving south. I hope they do.

Goings On

2009-10-21T18:33:00.010-04:00

I am so slacking on the blog front, its true-- but not because I haven't been busy! Here's a wee update of what's new!

I met my new friend Heidi at last year's Craft Revival, where she picked up some framed prints, and I recently put together a nice-sized order of work for her to sprinkle around her gorgeous home. She sent me some photos for you to peruse:

Robin's Nest, Forest Floor, Petoskey Stones and Bracken Fern in a block of four--with a swanky lamp I can't stop eying and a really cute orange tabby in the foreground!

Remus on white in the bedroom over a mounted plate makes for a
sweet combination against her soft blue walls.

Thanks again Heidi, for sending these photos in. Heidi is an interior designer by trade and a founding member of MICE, so I'm really honored that she chose support my artistic endeavors!

I will take this opportunity again to remind you that if you send in photos of your new prints I offer a 20% discount on any future print purchase from the Etsy shop.

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Speaking of MICE, organizer Kate Kehoe is putting on a show next month to help raise money for its senior center. I will not be able to attend, but put together a poster for the event. If you're free you should stop in for this rare opportunity to support the arts and an important community resource here in Ypsilanti.

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In other news...

I am working on a commission for Ann Arbor's own Carillon Chocolates. Alex, who runs the show over at Carillon, contacted me after the Jamboree last month to get some work up on the shops freshly painted blue and green walls. I am currently working on a series of 4 images (12 prints in all) for the shop with local/food themes that will be finished by the end of the month! The best part: I will be printing on the same burlap sacks the shop's coffee comes in, making the entire venture a green and happy one!

Did I mention I love this little shop? They roast all of their coffee in-house, use local vendors, and have a glass counter lined with beautiful confections-- just like your favorite childhood candy store. You will be transported, I promise. They're very conveniently located right on Main St. between Liberty and Williams-- I would highly recommend you stop in! (psst: they have $2
Lattes on Mondays!)

_______________________________________

And a show update:

After I wrap up this sweet project for Carillon, I will jumping head first into holiday preparations, and at that point we might as well kiss this blog goodbye. (just kidding) Seriously though, I have my work cut out for me. I mentioned in my last post that I will be returning to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair on November 21st. Since then I have also been accepted to sell work at the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale in Chicago on December 5th and 6th! This will be my first attempt trafficking prints over state lines, and I'm really excited to spend a weekend in the windy city!

And then the Holiday SuperSale of Awesome will commence in the Etsy shop!
That's the tentative name.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to add 14 million tags to this post-- I probably should have split all of this information up over a couple weeks!

Make. and make and make and make

2009-09-29T22:19:00.007-04:00

Wow-- Its really been awhile since I made a post of substance!
I had a quick string of September shows and have been a busy bee the last few weeks! I jumped back on the screen print train and made some new work!

In addition to the Ladder Fern on Burlap I've added a Huron River Bed print, and am planning a few more for the holidays on this medium. I have a really rad commission I'm working on this month entirely in burlap, so expect to see more of these in the future!

A nice two-tone print of branches-- titled August Branches, September Branches, October Branches. These hang great alone or as a group-- either with the same color combo or in mixing it up a bit!

I have been collecting images of rocks and minerals for years, but just recently hopped on the bandwagon and started putting them to use. Here's my take on agate-- also available in a soft, butter yellow.

So, I've been doing this for around a year now and have had plenty of time to notice trends in my work. I am attracted to neutral and bright images alike, but seem to sell neutrals in much greater numbers-- I think this has a lot to do with shop customers wondering if particular colors might match their space. I plan to continue offering prints in both flavors, but am focusing a little more on neutrals for right now-- particularly delicious soft browns and lush grays.

I am also continuing to work on screen prints that work well together-- here's a group I'm loving right now. The brown tones work really well together in all three!

I should probably also talk about how I'm tending to distribute work, since you're probably reading this entry and wondering why you can't find all of these marvelous new prints on Etsy. Balancing shows with selling online, retail, and wholesale/special projects has been kind of challenging as my work has picked up speed this past year. I usually have a plan for this sort of thing (who am I kidding, for everything!) but I have had a very hard time choosing where to center my focus, and have turned into a bit of a whirling dervish as a result.

Hopefully I get my business together and narrow my scope really soon. In any event, if you'd like to pick up a print that isn't on Etsy, drop me a line and I will arrange it. I am thinking a massive holiday sale is in order this year-- hopefully my inventory will hold out and I can offer a Gift One/Get One sale, because I think that would be really fun!

I'm also happy to annouce that I will again be a vendor at this year's Detroit Urban Craft Fair, so if you're in the area you can skip the shipping and pick up some prints in person! I'm still waiting on acceptance to a couple other holiday shows-- if I'm in you'll be the first to know!

This Weekend!

2009-09-19T15:51:00.004-04:00

This weekend you can find my work at the DIY Street Fair in Ferndale! Keep your eyes peeled for the Handmade Detroit booth! Click here for details-- this free festival includes music, local food/beer and a huge marketplace!

Busy MICE

2009-09-13T15:15:00.003-04:00

The Jamboree was an absolute blast! September is flying by-- its getting busy at work as we do a little permanent art remodeling, I have two more shows this month, and a couple of custom orders. I am about to screen a whole mess of birch trees-- they have become a hot commodity all of a sudden-- in the meantime please enjoy the poster I made last week for this falls' MICE at the Market show. This is the third poster I've made for this show-- they're always so much fun to put together. This time around I wanted to play off the acronym MICE, so I put together a little maze.

this weekend!

2009-09-03T21:34:00.002-04:00

The Jamboree at Riverside Park is this weekend, and I'm so excited to be a part of it!
Visit: http://www.the-jamboree.com/ for details!

Print Preview: Forest Floor

2009-08-31T17:30:00.006-04:00

I am in the midst of a printing break-- I've pulled around 100 woodcut prints off 5 plates over the course of last night and this afternoon. My whole right arm is very upset about the repetitive brayer and spoon action, and my neck is stuck in a downward position.

Here's a new guy from the bunch:

I think this is an autumn print. My sketch started with a single leaf, the oak in the center. Then I drew a few more, added an acorn, and before I knew it, I had the perfect ground cover on a brisk October day.

So I printed it up on this cardstock that's a cross between butternut squash and mustard yellow. And, to see what would happen, printed it on some kraft brown, white, and green too. They all look really different. I plan on attempting to hand color the white in a few days once my ink is dry. I don't usually care for this look, but it might just work with this one.

This print will be up for grabs this weekend at the Jamboree at Riverside Park, and on Etsy shortly. A couple of simple screen print editions were in the schedule for tonight-- hopefully my neck straightens out by then!

Changes

2009-08-17T15:11:00.007-04:00

So as I've mentioned, I've spent some time over the last month or two working on a bit of branding by creating a coherent 'look' to attach to everything. I do a lot of this in my day job, so I get a little nerdy and excited about it. The fortunate part about what I do by day is that we get to change the merchandising look everytime a flyer comes out-- with my prints I wanted something that could last me at least a year... because consistency is generally a good thing. Anyway, first I started with a drastic redesign for my shop banner, which I carried over to marcydavy.com and the blog. I found, fell in love with, and committed to using Turnpike, my favorite typeface as of late, occasionally mixing it up with a nice script that's easy to read (its called Little Days, and is free at Dafont I believe)

I'm loving a good mix of script and classic mid-century sans-serif right now, so these two make a sweet pair. I've been doing the same in my signs at work, but with Black Jack type face, because the changing line weights and crispness seem to work well on an advertising level. Here's examples.

You might recognize Black Jack from BohBon Soap's super-sweet packaging.

Speaking of soap, Chrissy at BohBon makes some heavenly soaps that are nice and gentle and smell pleasing and earthy. I'm a big fan of Gypsy Spice and Earth Mama Goat Milk. And, I haven't smelled Rifferaff's soaps yet, but Shannon wraps them in hand-printed paper and uses real Michigan honey in them and they look good enough to eat!

Last tangent, I swear. So when the time came to put together some retail packaging, I used these fonts again. This is some drawn and scanned woodgrain, with a title on the front, info and links on the back, and a cute little retro price circle. I added the leaf on the other side for some balance.

Next, I reimagined my business cards. For the fourth time this year. I'm not even kidding-- take a look!

The top left was my first card. I threw it together very quickly last summer, printed it on some cardstock, and cut it up myself. Late last year, I started ordering them from 123Print, which has a lot of sweet contemporary designs-- this one was perfect. When I was in a pinch because I never remember to order more, I spent an evening printing them up on my ink-jet at home on textured cardstock in a long skinny ticket size and cutting them by hand. That particular incarnation has the most info on it-- too much in my opinion. When it came time to COMMIT to a design for awhile, I decided that I wanted something that was simple and had a handmade feel.

I designed and ordered a self-inking rubber stamp from Vista Print (I scored a half-off deal and paid $8.99!) and am stamping these on simple manila shipping labels. I have been using these shipping labels to tag work for awhile, I love how simple and recognizable they are. My favorite part about these stamps is that they're the first that actually utilize printmaking in their production. I love the little imperfections between one and the next!

Now that all of these merchandising changes are wrapped up, its time to get back to work on the prints that they're selling!

For the Win!

2009-08-16T23:57:00.007-04:00

Hiawatha Birches and Robin's Nest are both currently featured and for sale on the prints section of the Renegade Handmade online shop! I have just one more of these left in my inventory at home right now, but I'm thinking about another similar edition for fall.

And I have another new woodcut in the works-- working title: forest floor. When its done I'll show it to ya! I'd also love to throw up some photos of my newly designed retail packaging and business card stamp one of these days! I really need to find more time-- hopefully this nice weather will subside soon and I can go back to holing up in the apartment with my ink and ideas. How do you people in temperate climates get anything done?!

The Pendulum Swings!

2009-08-09T21:43:00.007-04:00

I sometimes wonder if I have what it takes to make work full-time, because the process of creating is a bit tricky for me. I need everything to feel right-- I can't come home and dive in if I've had a bad day, or I'm thinking about my bills. My surroundings need to be organized and peaceful. And then, once everything is in place for the show, I have to pull back the curtain and not recite, but invent my lines.

And then I have to trust whatever story those lines tell-- sometimes they are pulled more toward one type of subject matter, or medium, or color palette. Sometimes I don't feel like I have a whole lot to do with what direction I'm headed in-- there's an intuition at work that just takes me there.

Such is the case with the recent prints. I've spent months working almost exclusively on screen prints, only reverting back to woodcuts when I need to pull a handful off the same plates I've been using since last winter. I've reopened and touched up a few new pieces, but haven't made anything new in awhile. Ok, that's not true, I did cut up a plate a few months ago and I hated it. I had been thinking about it for forever, and it seemed just fine when I carved it, and then I pulled the print and I hated it. That doesn't happen very often these days. So I told myself to put it 'behind the couch' as an art teacher once told me and come back to it later. Later turned into the better part of two seasons.

And then, like a spark, it comes back. Its hard to explain how this happens when you work in two mediums exclusively. I did come close to an explanation by way of a blog post by amazingly reflective an articulate fellow Etsy seller Allison Sattinger of Sunny Rising. If you compared art to real-world jobs (ha!) the two types of prints I make would be like working in related jobs in the same field-- say chemistry and physics. Allison's working life, in silversmithing and leather tooling, is more like bouncing between ballet and construction.

Here's an excerpt from her blog that sums up this duality in ways of making perfectly:

I cannot breathe in enough of the scent of leather

nor can I seem to tool enough....

The pendulum which had swung to silver for so many weeks has swung to leather

one field lays fallow while another is seeded and harvested -

that's the way to keep the earth full of nutrients

and the mind blossoming with ideas and activity.

I can relate entirely. So, my pendulum appears to be swinging back toward woodcut prints, which is too bad because I just bought a $40 gallon jug of screen print ink. Today I made a woodcut from start to finish, and I thought I'd give you a little 'making tour'

So first I draw the image on the plate. The plate is the same size as the paper the print will go on, so I decide on a border size first. Then I draw the image in pencil, and again in black sharpie. The black sharpie is great for this because you get lines with about the same weight as your finished product, not too fine in the detail department. Then I cut away all of my line work with a Dremel tool with small sanding attachment. This is where I depart from most relief printers, who use hand tools. The Dremel cuts approximately 99% of the time away from this process-- with the added bonus of not swearing under my breath or cutting my hands. The vibrating does require occasional breaks because your hand will go numb.

All carved away-- the Dremel cuts curves with ease, this would be nearly impossible with hand tools.

Next I make a frame from paper and tape with a hinge on one side. After I ink up the plate I can swing this frame over the print to prevent ink around the edges from touching the paper.

Then I squeeze some ink out of the tube, loosen it up with a palette knife, roll it out with a brayer, and ink up the plate. At this point I can see where I'm going to want to go back in with the Dremel later and touch up some leaves.

Then I put a piece of paper on top, push the ink into the paper with a wooden spoon and voila! Finished product. This is called Bracken Fern :)

Here's a close-up of the wet ink. I use oil-based inks because I think the texture is so must finer and smoother after the drying process is complete. This print will take around 2 days to dry completely, at which time the ink will feel and look almost like suede.

I've been feeling the need to switch my subject matter from one process to the other-- so in addition to seeing woodcut prints with ferns, leaves, stones and other subjects from my screen prints, I am starting to envision screen prints with the nests and rock formations and roots. Hopefully new inspiration with intervene at some point as well.

If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation of how woodcut prints work, I recently posted a PowerPoint tutorial to my web site that you can download or view online. Maybe your pendulum will swing toward woodcut prints too!

The End of Summer

2009-08-06T22:34:00.006-04:00

I'm winding down summer with a handful of shows-- now that they're all confirmed, I thought I'd share.

First up!

August 14 & 21, 7-10 pm
Crossroads Summer Festival, Ypsilanti
Washington Street/Downtown
A free summer concert series Friday nights through August in historic downtown Ypsilanti. I'll be selling framed woodcut prints and screen prints two Fridays in a row!

Also in Ypsitucky, I mean, Ypsilanti:

September 4 & 5
The Jamboree, Ypsilanti
Riverside Park/Depot Town
A two-day festival over Labor Day weekend featuring lots of favorite local bands, artists and beers. Cheap admission, lawn chairs, and foot-stomping all on the banks of my favorite local river. I will be introducing new woodcuts at this show, in addition to screen prints.

And my first time selling work in Funky Ferndale:

September 19-20
DIY Street Fair, Ferndale
E 9 Mile and Woodward
Handmade Detroit Tent
A free 2-day show that celebrates the DIY ethic in everything from arts, music, food and homebrewing. I will be selling screen prints under the Handmade Detroit Tent. The Handmade Detroit Tent is code for: the most creative energy per square inch ever witnessed-- its really worth a look!

Not in Metro Detroit?
I have also updated the Etsy shop with some new screen prints from this summer-- more are on the way!

After spending the last few weeks putting my brand new retail vendor hat on, I'm happy to announce that my first batch of prints has been shipped to Renegade Handmade, an actual brick and mortar store in the spirit of the popular indie art fair. If you find yourself in Chicago stop in and take a look-- the last few prints from many best-sellers are there!

Other tricks up my sleeve:
- an online tutorial on how you can start making prints with bits you have laying around your apartment
- more retail
- if i can manage to keep up, the return of mixed media and embroidery into my work!

Print Photo: Rachel's Grouping of 6

2009-08-03T18:28:00.006-04:00

Look at what Rachel did!

My friend Rachel has been collecting my prints for around 6 months now (she recently drove all the way down to the AA Art Fair to stop by my booth) and has arranged them in a really wonderful and unexpected way on her wall in this stair-step formation. This arrangement is fantastic-- I love how she managed to balance the composition by weighing the corners in the lower left and top right with busier prints, placing green ferns in the center, and simpler neutral prints in the other corners. Thanks for your continued support, Rachel!

Just a reminder-- if you send me a photo of your prints in action I'll give you a 20% discount on any future print purchase!

Regrouping

2009-07-29T00:39:00.009-04:00

www.marcydavy.com
is up and running!

I started the site as a way of covering and/or organizing all of my bases-- my recent work, links to Etsy/retail shopping, day job portfolio, and this blog, and even a space to share art education resources along with my resume.

I coded a website by hand for a class a few years ago, and the experience left me so traumatized that I ended up using Weebly this time around. Weebly is a really great web design site, easy to use and customize with some basic knowledge of how websites work. Its easy peasy to add pages, slideshows, downloadable files, your own html, links, text, etc. I hope to keep it fresh as time goes on, but right now its just what I need to get started. The best part: Weebly hosts the site for free, and its super easy to buy a domain name (I picked mine up for 6.99 and 1and1) and direct your site to it. So for under $10 and a few hours I had a site up and running. It was so easy, I'm concerned I might start doing it just for fun.

In other news, I have officially decompressed from the craziness that was the Ann Arbor Art Fair. After devoting 99% of last weekend to housekeeping and relaxing, I have officially rested up and regained my bearings. The fair was a lot of fun, and I have the seamless organization of the South University Area Association (hellos and thank yous in particular to organizers/show runners Maggie, Jill, Ryan and Emily!) for making my transition from little table to great big tent a wonderful one. The show was my most successful to date by leaps and bounds!

I have a few dates lined up through September (details coming soon!) and am hoping to also start looking into additional retail/wholesale/consignment opportunities in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Favorite Things: Brainstorm Print and Design

2009-07-25T11:48:00.006-04:00

I had stored in the que a blog post about the lovely little group Brainstorm Print and Design, who sells limited edition screen prints out of their online shop. My favorite was sold out at the time, so I had a second print lined up and ready to purchase. Then, I swung by IndieFixx this morning and discovered they had released another print I'm absolutely in love with and a second edition of the one I liked so much in the first place.

Here they are:

The New One.
Love this for several reasons: 1) Take It Easy is my favorite Eagles song. 2) The vintage styling in the horizontal lines is pitch perfect. 3) Amazing composition

The original print I was drooling over.
Love this one because 1) the brown on brown is a favorite palatte of mine. 2) perfect pine silhouettes, a canoe-- its adorable! 3) I looooove camping.

I can't decide... help!
If you love these, get yourself over to the Brainstorm shop-- they sell out fast!

One More Day!

2009-07-17T22:51:00.005-04:00

There's still one day left to check out the Ann Arbor Art Fair-- you can find my wall-o-prints on the corner of South University and Forest. Here's a photo of (most of) my booth in case you can't make it!

I started off with all three walls up in my booth, but on Day 2 I decided to take advantage of my spot on the end and ditched one wall for this setup. Tomorrow I'm going to mix it up even more with some unique clusters of work on the back wall.

Here's a shot of the screen prints in bins waiting patiently for new homes! The antique wood tool caddy is another item generously donated by my boyfriend's parents. Its been the perfect container for this show!

almost ready...

2009-07-14T00:27:00.004-04:00

Here are all of the finished screen prints in my possession-- right around 200. I have around 100 more that can be stretched-- my plan is to get to those throughout the week as things sell. Living 10 minutes form the venue is fantastic.

Today we built three walls for all of my work to hang on-- one for small screens, one for small woodcuts, and one for large work from both. I, per my usual routine, came in with a sketch that was 100% structurally unsound. Luckily, my boyfriend's dad Dave is an amazing craftsman with a fully functioning wood shop (you know that big yellow saw they have at Home Depot-- he actually owns one of those) and he turned my vision into a reality in under 8 hours and charged me nothing. I threw a layer of deep brown on everything and its ready to assemble at set-up tomorrow.

I still have lots to do before I'm allowed anywhere near a bed-- so that's it for tonight! I will be posting on Twitter this week (I even know how to post photos now-- fancy!) so you should stop in there. I just added a Twitter feed to the side bar off to your right, so you can follow along.

Good night!

Print Preview: AA Art Fair

2009-07-10T15:56:00.005-04:00

I've been cranking out the prints over the last few weeks-- here's a handful of the new ones!

Mesas
This print has been living in my mind's eye for months-- it was very cathartic to get it out on canvas. 5 screens, one in a lovely sky blue, four oranges ranging from creamsicle to rust.

Lake Leaves
A simple plant silhouette from a sketch made on Hamlin Lake. I made a huge edition of this one, it will be available in the green on green (as shown above) green on blue, brown on green, brown on blue, brown on orange and brown on natural canvas. I wish I had thought to pull out the burlap for this one-- maybe next time!

Mineral Deposit
Based on a painting made for my little sister and her husband to celebrate their wedding. Four screens in rich, warm colors-- based loosely on the soil content diagrams.

Sleeping Bear Dunes
It was only a matter of time before the crisp aqua waters of Lake Michigan started showing up in my work. Sky blue sits on top of aqua, on top of sloping drifts of sand in a buttery yellow taupe.

I didn't get very accurate colors for the photos due to the hazy, diffused light coming in our windows today-- a nasty side-effect of a humid Michigan summer day. I have another 6 or 7 new 8x8" prints pulled as well, and am noticing a huge gravitation toward warm colors in my work right now. I asked my friend Adam (a Florida native) once, what he thought of living in a four-season climate and he told me that its like having four pockets to carry your memories in. Now that I've been doing this for a year I can start to see the same principle apply to my work.

Tonight I pull some larger screen prints and get crackin' on the mountain of woodcuts that need to be made.

One Week Away (yikes!)

2009-07-07T22:07:00.003-04:00

Hope to see you there!

Log-to-Logo

2009-07-03T22:25:00.016-04:00

I've been rethinking my logo for awhile now-- tonight I took a little time to work the image in my mind into something more tangible.

I started by looking for the quintessential mid-century sans serif font. I struck gold when I found Turnpike, from the Font Diner Foundry. I am seriously crushing on Font Diner-- everything in their catalog is amazing! This is a classic, long-haul, trend-resistant font-- I'm looking forward to using it on everything! The more I look at it the more it reminds me of the letter chart they have you read at the optometrist office.

Looks like they stretched it out just a leeetle bit.

I knew that I wanted to substitute the 'O' in GROW with my log print, so I started by cutting it out and making the color more computer friendly.

I quickly realized that it didn't transfer as well on a small level (this particular logo will be as small as 150x50 in some cases) so I started with the O from Turnpike in the same dark brown, and turned it into a log.

I flooded my background with a lovely buff color, added the text in Turnpike, stuck in my log and viola!

and modified for Etsy:

I threw in a blog banner remodel too!

Big Things in the Works!

2009-06-29T18:45:00.006-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, I took it upon myself to take a little 'online' sabbatical for a few weeks. The dust-bunnies blowing around my Etsy shop and blog have been offset with frantic printing. The scale and duration of my next show is huge and totally new for me, so I'm trying to make lots and lots of prints. In the meantime I have become significantly more frequent with the tweeting-- please feel free to stop in there if you'd like!

I've also been thinking a lot about how to take things to 'the next level' after that, so it was very fitting that I received an email from Sue Daly of Renegade Handmade inviting me to sell work in her Chicago store. I am a huge fan of her and her husband Mat's work-- (he's one of only a handful of people I can find who use the same screen print process as I do!) and am well aware that it doesn't get much awesomer than Renegade, so I promptly accepted!

click to visit!

All right, back to work-- I've reworked some pieces with amazing success in addition to entirely new designs-- will be posting photos shortly!

Celebrate Summer

2009-06-11T22:53:00.003-04:00

We always pull together a 'look' for the store entry for each new flyer-- this time we decided to go with 'Celebrate Summer' because it was nice and simple and we're just so glad that the sun is finally here!

I cut down a truck-load of triangle flags from four shades of textured cardstock in fantastic beach-side colors-- and then we hot glued each one to white string at 4 inch intervals and hung them up in long, graceful, 'county fair-like' swags. Adam made all of the signs-- from hundreds of gathered paint chips.

Its really simple, but came together so beautifully.
I love the negative space on the sign.

Here's a closeup of the fabulous paint chip job.

love this 2!

we carried the flags throughout the store. they were the perfect punch of color-- easy to make and effortless to hang. we'll definitely be revisiting them again, maybe with scantron sheets and old lined paper for back to school!

This seemed fitting to post tonight because I'm off to celebrate summer myself-- our first camping trip of the year starts tomorrow! Chris and I are meeting up with our friends Andy and Holly on Lake Michigan for a long weekend. I will be back next week with photos!

And another!

2009-06-08T11:32:00.004-04:00

I had a blast in Mt. Clemens over the weekend-- shared a tent with lots of really nice people, enjoyed an elephant ear, and made a little money too. This show was huge in terms of exposure-- my work was awarded 'Best of Show' for the Urban Art Tent and I was also featured in Thursday's Detroit News Arts Section:

Hooray!

I don't have a lot of time to rest on my laurels because I was accepted into the Ann Arbor Art Fair last week! The Ann Arbor Art Fair is a famous group of four fairs throughout the downtown area that take place over four days in July. It draws about half a million people into the city, and claims to be ranked the #1 Art Fair in North America by various publications. Here's a shot of the fair from a few years ago:

This is just one block of many that make up the fair as a whole!

I will have a whole tent for this show, which means I need a lot more inventory and furnishings. I have many, many more screen prints to pull in the coming weeks and lots and lots and lots of woodcuts. Endless woodcuts. I'd like to say I'm not wasting any time getting started, but I already made plans to spend the next two weekends out of town-- so for now I'm doing lots of planning. Tonight I will be placing a very large Dick Blick order and trying to decide what to print. I'm buying a bigger screen so that I can make some larger work, and I guess I'll just hope for the best!

Three Days!

2009-06-04T20:00:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is the first day of my first multi-day show ever-- the Mt. Clemens Art Fair. This event has showcased fine artists since its beginning, but will be trying their luck with the indie crowd this year with an alternative and urban crafts tent, under which you'll find my little table. I don't know anything about this fair, so I don't have a whole lot of expectations, but I'm sure I'll have fun.

I like to try something new for each show-- at this one I'll be selling a handful of little screen printed acorn gift cards along with everything else. I've also decided to mix things up by playing some (very soft) music.

If you can't make it, feel free to follow me on Twitter. I'll be reporting in using 140 characters or less all weekend long.

Whoa.

2009-06-04T00:13:00.003-04:00

This print from Tugboat Printshop took my breath away.
(click to enlarge)

How to Score Great Gifts and Influence People

2009-05-31T21:45:00.003-04:00

I have something really awesome to show you!

Those little scanners at the big box stores are awesome, but what if you could supplement your baby/wedding registry with handmade items? My Handmade Registry makes it ridiculously simple. Paste your Etsy favorites onto the site, share the email address, and you're done! Not only will you wind up with original and amazing gifts with impeccable craftsmanship that will last a lifetime, but you support independent artists and crafters everywhere, and turn on your friends and family to the handmade movement!

Here's a tiny sample of Etsy offerings that would be a big hit at baby showers:

Chocolate Orchid Changing Mat from Made By Kate

Baby Business Onesie from IsabellaBoo. So Distinguished!

This natural toy set by Wee Wood Natural Toys encourages sorting, counting and other important skills.

This Discovery Tote by Helicopher Studios creates an instant play space for little imaginations!

In other news, I have a really busy week ahead of me. I've pulled around 200 woodcut prints over the last few days that need a color screened in tomorrow, and around 100 screens to frame up before Thursday. More info on my next show later in the week!

On Craftivism

2009-05-29T23:15:00.006-04:00

I just reached my 100th sale on Etsy about an hour ago (thanks, Brooke!) and I've been thinking a lot lately about the money that I make from selling art. I was recently asked if I would mind donating a piece to the art center that is organizing an upcoming show, and the answer was easy. Non-profit arts centers are on the chopping block in Michigan right now-- and I'm so infuriated that I sent our Governor a nasty letter about it when she announced her intent to cut this funding several months ago. (If you'd like to email Jennifer Granholm and tell her that the arts are not expendable, you can click here.) Anyway, I eagerly signed up to donate a piece, and started thinking about how I could help in other small ways. I tried researching museums and non-profit organizations that run art auctions-- when I came up largely empty-handed I started to change my approach.

If nothing else, my work is about the places I've been. When I think about all that these places have given me, I'm amazed. My perspectives and beliefs have been so heavily influenced by the beauty that I've witnessed, and really, the only way I give back to these spaces is through voting for politicians who may or may not rally around them.

I think that its time to put my money where my mouth is, so I started to look for organizations who are taking monetary donations, and that was much easier.

1) Alliance for the Great Lakes
This group participates in a whole variety of activities in order to help preserve the largest freshwater system on Earth, the Great Lakes. If you've never seen the Great Lakes, you're really missing out-- they're an amazing treasure carved out by the glaciers, every bit of shoreline is stunning. I grew up with parents who were passionate about trekking us all over Michigan to visit these lakes every summer, and I've seen all of them by lonely Lake Ontario (the little guy on the far right)

Later I had the good fortune of meeting a wonderful guy who loves visiting these natural treasures as much as I do-- here's a couple of his photos of our favorite spot on Lake Michigan.

From now on I will be contributing to the Alliance for the Great Lakes by donating $1 from every Petoskey Stones print sold on Etsy. Most of these prints are sold to lovely people who tell me about fond memories of childhoods spent hunting for Petoskey Stones on the shores of Lake Michigan, just like I did. It seems fitting that I use this print to help keep that experience alive for generations to come.

2) Global ReLeaf of Michigan
Global ReLeaf's mission is really simple-- they want to plant trees in Michigan. This group is based out of Ann Arbor, where I work and spend a lot of my time paddling the Huron. When you start canoeing all over the place you realize that the Huron is special-- despite the fact that it flows through one of the most sought after communities in Michigan, its shores remain almost completely undeveloped with the exception of sprawling natural parks.

Here's a slice of autumn beauty on the Huron:

I'd like to offset some of the lumber that I use to stretch screen prints, so from now on I will donate $1 from every Hiawatha Birches or Log Slice print purchased on Etsy in order to help them realize this endeavor.

3) Odwalla Plant a Tree Program
My original intent was to donate to this project, which is planting trees in State Parks throughout the country for the rest of the year. Then I realized that Odwalla is donating the trees, and all you have to do is click a button and they'll plant one in the state of your choice! Please take a minute to visit the site and have them stick one in the ground just for you.

I would eventually like to donate from show sales to these organizations too-- first I need to develop an inventory system that works (or an inventory system, period.) I write down everything before shows, but then I get home and don't feel like counting what's left (the crucial step I'm missing) and then I sell a few online and before I know it I'm just kind of staring blankly at my storage.

Hopefully my little donations will help plant a couple trees and clean up a few feet of shoreline in the woods and lakes that have done so much for me.

Two Features

2009-05-24T21:30:00.009-04:00

Have I mentioned Printsy before? Its a quickly growing online community of printmakers on Etsy who share their work with each other. Each week a member shares their thoughts through a little interview-- today its my turn! Click here to learn a little about my history with printmaking, my materials and workspace and what not. Some photos of my process and workspace are included. Thanks so much to the the very talented Amie Roman for inviting me! Here's a photo from the interview of my latest print drying:

I pulled a big batch of woodcuts last night, and am about to tackle another. I decided to go with Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates for audio-book companionship and am loving it so far. It traces the history of the puritans who settled America with lots of humor and a sprinkle of sarcasm. As someone who was historically nerdy enough to complete the entire series of North and South books (followed by the Patrick Swayze mini-series rented from the public library) during one middle school summer (I can't believe I'm telling the internet this) -- I'm enthralled by Vowell's take on our past and love seeing the connections still vastly apparent between our country at its beginnings and at present day.

I downloaded this one through Audible.com-- 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a trial membership. They're not paying me to say that (obviously, since I have like 4 readers) but its really easy to give it a shot and very simple to cancel. I'm saving the other credit for our camping trip in June-- four hours in the car flies by if you're listening to a story. You can also find Sarah Vowell regularly contributing on This American Life-- the entire archives of which is available to stream by following this link.

All right, time to get moving. We took a decent-sized 5 mile trek down the river today and went to a holiday bbq-- I'm bushed!

Happy Listening (and Reading!)

Show Promos

2009-05-20T00:44:00.008-04:00

Looking for something to do this weekend?
Come see me and all of these people:

at Movement 2009! In Detroit!

May 23-25
Hart Plaza
@ the Handmade Detroit Shop
(just to the right of the entrance gate)

My work will be there all weekend, my person will be there Monday from 4-9.

______________________________

In other show news, I received some information and a stack of postcards from the Mt. Clemens Art Fair yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my entry photos had made the cover!

That's me in the corner...
(resisting the urge to sing REM.....)

Saturday's plan is to pull as many woodcut prints as humanly possible. I find that I get into the groove with woodcut prints much easier if I have an audiobook to listen to, so I'll be shopping for one to download tonight. Any suggestions? I listened to a big chunk of David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed in Flames last time. I think I'd like to stick with funny essays-- that way I'm not totally lost if my mind wanders or I have a hissy fit over off-registration or some other trivial set-back.

Screen printing is more of a high energy enterprise, so I stick with my tried and true 'fast' play list-- lots of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes, The Thermals, The Helio Sequence and so on. I would equate screen printing energy to fast house-keeping-- a lot of quickly moving back and forth in small spaces.

Feed Your Soul

2009-05-19T18:48:00.006-04:00

I'm so excited to share this project with you!

Feed Your Soul is an off-shoot project of Indie Fixx to help supply us all with pretty art in these times of economic turbulence. With one click you open a PDF file of the art sized to fit a piece of printer paper. From there you can print it off on your inkjet at home, or send it off to your local copier. Final cost: the price of photo paper and a little bit of ink. I am all for affordable work, so I was really excited to participate in this project.

This also gave me the chance to skew the printmaking method to make a single, complex original-- something I haven't done in around a year. I opted for screen printing on canvas because I love the look of digital fabric-- it lends some extra dimension.I printed flat panels in all sorts of colors, cut them out and stitched them together to make this little guy:

We were only asked to depict something that feeds our soul in the download-- so I went with a little scene of our canoe chugging down the Huron. One of my favorite sections of the river channels through Nichols Arboretum-- the immediate scenery is lush and green with the slightest poke of Ann Arbor's skyline along the top.

You can download my print (or any of the others) right here

New Honeycomb Print

2009-05-18T19:42:00.002-04:00

Used the same negative-print method over the weekend with this honeycomb print. I laid the yellow down first and then cut out and applied approximately 1 million little honeycombs before screening on the brown. I laid it out much more haphazardly than usual, but I think that the composition came out a-okay anyway.

Will be stretching around 40 screens tonight and attaching tags to all of them and taking inventory. Then I'll be ready to go for the Movement show, and thinking about the next one-- I have TWO weekends to get around for it-- a frightening thought! I'll be reevaluating after this coming show in order to decide whether or not to take a little time off the day job to get ready for the next one.

Sneak Peeks

2009-05-15T20:05:00.008-04:00

I've been stalling on buying more business cards. I get lots of compliments on my old ones, and they match my shop "look," but I was never really sold on them. My plan, should time ever permit, is to screen print designs on card stock and then print out info a clear mailing labels to put on top. A bit like moo cards, but with a handmade spin. I think I really just wanted my cards to feel unique from one to the next. I also wanted type to play more of a starring role than a supporting one-- and that's not really possible in anything you can order.

Then I commited to selling work in Handmade Detroit's multi-vendor shop at Movement, (formerly the Detroit Electronic Music Festival) and realized that if I wanted to truly take advantage of marketing to 80,000 people then I'd need lots of new business cards in a hurry. Like 10 days hurry. So I bought some textured cardstock and went for a skinny horizontal format on my inkjet at home.

I like how they turned out-- I'm still itching to print my own though! The script/western treatment in my shop name is on its way to becoming my new m.o. I think.

My work graced the pages of Design Sponge this week thanks to Chicago designer Amy Allison's home. Amy picked up some work from me last year-- I'm so happy to see it tucked away in her bathroom! She makes really beautiful screen printed textiles and pretty white ceramic work with an etched feel.

Can you spot it?

My piece for IndieFixx's Free Art Project will be up sometime between next week and the end of the month. Here's a little glimpse at the work-in-progress.

You'll be able to download and print the finished piece once its up on the site!

A creative activities update!

2009-05-12T18:48:00.008-04:00

I've been out and about this past week-- the options for passing time are much more plentiful now that the warm weather has returned! I have managed to sneak in a little work and have also developed a really fun eye twitch in response to the work yet to be done!

As promised, here's the super exciting theme for the new flyer at the store:

We wanted something really fresh because green is shooting out of the ground like crazy, so we went with sprouting. My coworker Adam created the sprout from foam board and wire, and then applied multiple layers of felt on top before nestling it in this little shadow box behind plexi-glass. Several components of the actual sign were cut from paper that was applied to the chalkboard-- a totally new way of working for us that we'll definitely be coming back to. The rest of the store is filled with downed branches that we covered in kraft paper tape and little paper leaves.

In my own work, I'm happy to announce that I have a new favorite material-- his name is Mr. Burlap.

(click for texture bliss!)

I purchased this organic hemp burlap a few months ago, but just got around to using it this weekend. I love the effect when a somewhat modern image is screened on top-- the contrast is heavenly.

The only problem with Mr. Burlap is that he's really thirsty. These prints require at least 4 times the amount of ink required to screen a regular print-- the dried burlap weave is like a sponge! I haven't decided yet whether or not to charge more for these prints-- either way, I'm in love.

This reverse technique (where the negative space is screened in) is going to play prominently in the prints I pull in the next few weeks I think-- I'm hoping it will be a fun way to breathe some new life into successful images. At the same time as the burlap prints were created I pulled another Ladder Fern edition where the brown negative space is screened on top of a variegated panel of greens.

For this effect, I cut the screen opening to just under the size of my piece of canvas, and then dollop on a few shades of green in random spots and pull the ink across the whole panel. Then I screen the negative space on top in brown. I already used this method last winter with the Huron River Bed series, which I'll be bringing back in addition to these Ladder Fern prints and some Honeycomb style prints also using this method.

That's on my to-do list between now and the next show, in addition to (as always) pulling lots and lots and lots of woodcut prints. I have my work cut out for me!

Tweaking the Plan

2009-05-06T23:48:00.004-04:00

I had a fantastic time at my student teaching alma mater, Ann Arbor Learning Community this past Saturday at their annual Spring Fling Craft Fair. And I've discovered that my hunch after Handmade Detroit's Craft Revival continues to hold true. Rather than small individual print purchases making up the bulk of my sales, like holiday shows where folks are either looking for gifts or making very small personal purchases, most of my income from these past two shows has been the result of several large purchases. A lot of my customers have been looking to buy multiple prints that work together. I never really saw this as coming.

So I'm going back to the drawing board on my plan for this body of work a bit. I still have plenty of these prints to get me through the next show, but will be looking for additional work to coordinate more. I will be bringing a few images out of retirement (with changes) that will work really well to this end, but because I don't find that terribly exciting, I'll be doing some sketching this week to develop pieces that work really well with what I have in terms of color and composition. Being flexible is the name of the game-- and I can't say I'm not excited (and a little taken aback) when someone hands nine screen prints to me and says I'll take all of these! ( If you're reading this Willow, thank you so much! )

I have four more weekends before the Mt. Clemens Art Fair-- my very first multiple day show. (They haven't released a vendor list yet-- but if you're coming, please drop me a line!) I have no idea what to expect for this show, and I think its the first year they're offering a space for 'alternative artists' like myself, so there's plenty of uncharted waters. I've been doing an ok job rolling with the punches with these last two shows, so I guess I'll just make what I can, bring it, and see what happens. If I've learned anything so far its that I have no idea what will happen.

Design for Mankind = Food for Brains.

2009-05-06T22:30:00.009-04:00

I wanted to share a whole slew of photos today, but I left my camera at work, so I've decided to up the ante and share some video instead. I was tipped off to Design For Mankind's Dialogue Series through contributor Kate Bingaman-Burt (from Obsessive Consumption) and whenever I stop in to check on the series I'm fascinated by the topics of discussion.

Design For Mankind - Dialogue Episode 8 from Design For Mankind on Vimeo.

In this episode the contributors talk about the future of art and design. What Craig Atkinson has to say is particularly fascinating. His basic point is that we saw graphics look really crisp and hi-tech in the 80's and 90's. Design that bears a more handmade aesthetic is something of a reaction to that era-- perhaps the apex of which was Starbucks Christmas 2008. In any event-- what's next? We've come to a place where the most current art of our time bears that sort of home-spun, handmade look. See illustration sensation Julia Rothman, for example. Basic line work like hers is HUGE in illustration right now. Or the entire soundtrack of Juno (which bears a basic line work cover) -- particularly that folksy theme song which you can now hear tweaked on endless mainstream commercials. Commercials which also LOOK handmade! Its everywhere!

As someone who not only participates in this design zeitgeist by hand painting signs 40 hours a week, but also hand painting faux sewn stitches onto handmade signs, I am curious to see what happens next. I recently made this poster for an upcoming MICE show:

Design doesn't get much more handmade looking than being popped into a .jpg of an embroidery hoop. Craig predicts that sleek design will soon make a comeback in reaction to the handmade craze, and even points to some airbrushed work he's recently noticed.

The episode prior is about the influence of blogs in the creative life of artists and designers:

Design For Mankind - Dialogue Episode 7 from Design For Mankind on Vimeo.

Blogs are a huge inspiration point in my work, but I definitely feel like its a bit much sometimes. Working too much from what you see out there on the internet can strip away your own voice if you're not also pulling from abstract, real-life situations. Its easy to feel drawn to work and say "I want to make that!" because you can, not necessarily because its the result of your own creative process. I feel this particularly with looser, more subtle images, but know that my strengths lie in making graphic work. I know that I'm not capable of working in this mode all the time, because its just not how I process visual information.

Its a lot to process-- how the work of our time is influenced by this relatively new global community-- how the handmade aesthetic is almost a reactionary force to our high-tech world and what we might do to push into 'what's next'

In any event, this series is really interesting and well worth a peek!

Painting with All the Colors of the Wind

2009-04-27T20:55:00.005-04:00

We took the canoe out today and stayed a lot closer to the banks of the river than normal to break the 42mph (!) wind gusts. Its amazing what details you find sticking close to the land. We pulled into a little nook filled with swamp cabbage and I found this little sprout growing out a rotting trunk.

On the way back we noticed the hearth of a long-gone home poking out of the trees-- we've canoed this stretch so many times, but hadn't noticed it until today.

We also saw maybe 30 baby turtles sunning themselves on branches-- when we paddled by they would plop into the river one at a time-- maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen next to last summer's ducklings.

I'm off to finish a few custom orders tonight and back to work tomorrow where we're making sprout-themed decor for next week's flyer-- I can't wait to show you!

Saturday Chickadees

2009-04-25T16:57:00.009-04:00

We did not go out on the river today as planned (because despite the fact that it is 80 degrees, there seems to be some kind of thunderstorm headed our way) so I listed some of the new work and cleaned house.

I spent a little time flipping through Etsy and when I came across Bee Things my jaw hit the floor. Shay and Jeff live in Dallas and make some of the most amazing bird themed screen prints I have ever seen.

Here's a sample of their shop:

chicadees eating!

a very handsome owl (I'm posting this one for you, Rachel!)

this one drives me to make weird compulsive noises due to sheer cuteness

with eggs!!

a lovely little stack

I haven't made a trade in awhile because I haven't really had the inventory until recently. Before I could even stop myself I shot them a convo about trading some of my work for the top one of feeding chickadees, and they agreed to trade for a few of my woodcut prints, so it all worked out really well and I'm so happy.

I originally thought it would be great in my bedroom, where we have lots of oranges and browns, but I might need to look at it more than that, so it will probably find a home in my living room art cluster.

In addition to their shop you might also want to check out Shay's blog where she shares lots and lots of photos of really beautiful things. I've already added it to my feed because I'm pretty sure that we have the exact same taste.

Thanks again Jeff and Shay for trading with me!
I hope you all have a great weekend!

*update: link to Shay's blog has been corrected. :)

Wordle and Flickr and Twitter (Words I Never Thought I'd Type)

2009-04-22T22:20:00.005-04:00

So we all know that technology grows exponentially, or else we'd probably still be saving files on floppy disks and I'd still be a member of Columbia House. I spend more time than I should on the internet and eventually find my way to the latest thingamabobs, though I'm usually not the first to embrace them. With that somewhat reluctant Onward Ho! spirit I thought I'd share some recent web discoveries.

1) Wordle
If you love type then you love Wordle, its that simple. If you occupy any web space than its also a great tool to ascertain what kind of image you're projecting. You simply enter any URL and Wordle spits out a cloud of words found on your site. You can arrange your cloud from there-- choosing layout (I went with mostly vertical) font (coolvetica) and color theme (asparagus)

Before I show you my Etsy site's wordle, I would like to discuss two slightly related other subjects:
1) Coolvetica is a spin-off of the world's first truly hardworking sans-serif font, Helvetica. Helvetica is so important that it has been the subject of a riveting documentary.
2) Thanks to a tasting at work I have been privy to the miracle that is grilled asparagus. Coat with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and throw it on the grill or even a Foreman and enjoy nutty, crisp and delicious flavors in five minutes!

Ok! Wordle!

ooooo.

I learned a lot about the words I'm choosing byWordling my Etsy site-- the most often used ones are the largest. In every version I tried I came up with the word print in huge letters, and I loved that in this layout it almost looks like a magazine cover.

2) Flickr
I've had a Flickr for awhile but I kind of let it hibernate. After recently applying for a show and trying to find a way to present my whole body of work in one conveinent URL it seemed necessary to go back to Flickr and make a set devoted to work I've sold at shows and online in the last six months. Everytime I come back to Flickr I'm amazed at how fast and user friendly it is-- though this happy feeling may just be a byproduct of its multi-lingual greetings... I love that part.

whoa, I make bright prints!

Viewing all of my work in one screenshot did the same thing for me as Wordle, but on a purely visual level. It also helped me realize that my shop photos have come a long way. On another slightly related tangent, I think that I might own the best point and shoot ever. Very seldomly does it not capture color accurately, and there are even times when I don't have to edit photos at all thanks to image stabilization and a really great little macro feature.

Anyway, you can visit the All Things Grow set right here.

3) Twitter
I've been on Twitter for awhile. I'm very bad at updating it (as you can see, I've done it exactly four times) but I thought I'd share the link with you... I'm going to attempt to update it a little more when I'm on the busier side of things and don't have time for proper blog entries.

Click here to follow me. Or just look for the little tan station wagon flying around town like a bat out of hell and tail it.

Sharing is Caring!

2009-04-21T19:01:00.004-04:00

Many thanks to Russian Doll Designs for sending me a photo of her copy of Braided Root, framed up and looking spiffy in her hallway all the way across the Atlantic in Newcastle on Tyne, England. I absolutely love it in that chunky white frame!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but if you send a photo of a print in its new home I offer 20% any future print purchase-- in most cases that's the equivalent of free shipping!

Thanks Emma!

Craft Revival Recap

2009-04-19T21:02:00.009-04:00

Craft Revival was a blast!

I had the chance to chat with lots of other vendors-- I carpooled with Rifferaff, sold alongside fellow Ypsilanti-ite Sparklepants Industries, met The Proper Peach and traded with Phantom Limb. Everyone was super nice.

Here's a few photos:

A view of my table in the morning-- this is the first time I
used lights and I really liked them!

Vendors prepping their displays

Woodland Creatures made by The Proper Peach

A view from behind the booth

I met all sorts of wonderful art lovers, and learned that seasons really do dictate what people buy. Purchases made last winter seemed to have more of a 'gift' theme-- framed prints, single screenprints, etc. Yesterday was all about strategic home decorating. I sold a lot of unframed woodcut prints and a lot of framed prints/screen prints in multiple combinations. I had an absolute blast helping people pick out pieces that worked together for them to put up in new apartments and redecorated homes. I feel really honored to be a part of helping people start a collection of original art.

In any event, I learned a lot. I've relisted available prints on Etsy and will add more throughout the week while I attend to a few custom orders and put the finishing touches on my piece for The Free Art Project. (More on that, including a sneak peek as we lead up to its release on May 1st.)

Fly!

2009-04-18T01:05:00.003-04:00

Its time to push these newborn prints out of the nest and see how they fly.

See you tomorrow @ Craft Revival!
(or Monday on Etsy when I start listing the new work!)

Ahead of Schedule at the Factory

2009-04-16T00:22:00.012-04:00

I might actually pull this one off feeling organized.

I have screen prints to stretch, two clamp lights to finish spray painting (outside!) and inventory to inventorialize(?) in addition to making a few signs and some other odds and ends. I won't have to worry about packing the car with my table furniture since its still in the back of my wagon from the last show.

What's helped so much in this rush to the show madness has been the decision to stop using reclaimed frames. Most of the frames I own (and love the most) are vintage, and up until this point, I've used them almost exclusively. There's a certain level of fun in finding them-- driving to the one-day-a-week Kiwanis sale in Ann Arbor at 9am on a Saturday without brushing my hair, becoming a regular client on Resale Row, stumbling on other lovely treasures and so on. If I still practiced this method I'm sure I'd have found the solid wood mid-century coffee table of my dreams by now. And an entire Pyrex set. It was a fun, but time-intensive search. Then once I got the frames-- oh man. The things people do to wedge something in a frame- the nails and staples. I have a whole pile I could not resurrect once taken apart from the precarious situation I found them in. At the end of the day, the full time job was getting in the way of all of the time I wanted to spend thrifting, and I was starting to get frustrated at my lack of carpentry skills and time.

So when I stumbled on a gold mine of beautiful, modern, solid wood frames from a certain Swedish home furnishings empire at a huge discount, I spent a week thinking about it. At the end of the day the vintage frames were so.much.work. to find and put together, and I caved. I threw down a big chunk of change and took home enough frames to fill the closet in our office.

These new frames will make their debut on Saturday, and the online shop will soon be able to accommodate custom framing with any order. They look much more polished, but lack some of the character of a frame that's been beaten within an inch of its life and used to house a photograph of a duck in a party hat (true story). Sometimes I left the old art in the frame, just so anyone who takes it apart some day gets a sense of the life these four pieces of wood have lived. This sense of polish seems be true for my body of work this time around-- many of the woodcut images are the same, but on new, sturdier paper. The editions are more consistent, even, and neat. I miss the wonky frames, random fingerprints, and dinged corners a little. They contained a narrative all their own.

On the other hand, I learned printmaking in a purist environment. I was taught to craft my image carefully, ink neatly, and to print with clean fingers. I didn't appreciate learning the trade this way until I took a kind of 'anything goes' course, where the rules I learned about precision were thrown out the window. I admire amazing printmakers (like the very talented Annie Bissett, for example) who create images that pull this off so well, with so much patience. Its such a process-laden job to make a print that extra patience can sometimes be hard to come by. The small part of me that's a touch Type A is satisfied to see a marked improvement in craftsmanship in my own work... all it took was 8 years of practice.

Craft Revival Coupon!

2009-04-12T23:51:00.002-04:00

I wanted to offer blog readers who might find themselves at Craft Revival this Saturday a little something extra, and here it is!

Print this little puppy out and you can take home a woodcut print on the house when you purchase any screen or framed print. Its like putting a new five dollar bill in your hand only handmade and prettier!

If you're like me and almost always out of printer ink, you can hand draw the coupon and present it to me on Saturday as well. I will honor either version, though I will treasure the hand drawn one a teeny bit more. Extra points if you use crayon.

I'm trucking along with everything-- tonight (I know its already 1am, shhhh) I'm screening colors on woodblock prints. Then tomorrow I'll finish that and start the endless finger numbing work of stretching screen prints and putting woodcut prints into those annoying (but necessary) plastic sleeves. I also plan on running approximately 3,000 errands.

The Case of the Mystery Screen Print Panel

2009-04-12T14:25:00.008-04:00

My boyfriend recently acquired this crazy vintage screen print panel

and I immediately set out to try to learn more about it. Now I hate to toot my own horn, but I could make a sizeable part-time income as a professional internet searcher-- I am excellent at the Google. I thought I'd find information right away because its huge and really bold.

I poured over Pop and Op art screen printers and vintage textiles. I searched every single visual characteristic and visited countless pages on retro home decor. Eventually I gave up because this panel just didn't provide me with enough clues-- not signed, dated, titled. It was stretched well, but not professionally. So I'd totally given up and resigned myself to the fact that we'd always have this weird print we knew nothing about laying around.

Then today I casually opened up my Apartment Therapy SF Feed (I don't typically even visit the Apartment Therapy blogs because they go up so often its virtually impossible) and I saw
this!

The exact same print! Well almost-- this one doesn't have that extra set of lines that ours does-- so I'm guessing its a little shorter. To see this ever so serendipitously after combing the internet for hours days earlier really freaked me out.

I've emailed the apartment's owner (an Apartment Therapy contributor) and am hoping she can help me solve the mystery. I imagine she probably found it rather haphazardly too, but you never know.

Craft Revival Lineup

2009-04-04T01:01:00.005-04:00

Several days ago, (I'm a scoch behind on my posting duties)
Handmade Detroit announced the official lineup for Craft Revival!
Pay the site a visit and you can start planning your purchases!

Here are a few other show dates on ye' old spring calendar:

May 2: Spring Fling Arts and Crafts Show, Ann Arbor Learning Community
June 5-7: Mt. Clemens Art Fair (Alternative Craft Tent)
June 13: County Fair, Ann Arbor

Yessa's First Sale

2009-04-02T20:51:00.008-04:00

My dear friend Yessa makes amazing knit items and purse-stuffs (not sure if that's a word, but I like it!) that are cute, functional and really high quality. Some of her work is even hand-felted, and it is lovely. She's been on Etsy for awhile, but has yet to make that first sale.

(change purses in every color! The white with the
blue/brown/green stones is calling my name. )

I'd love to see her make her first sale, so I'm writing to let you know that if you are lucky buyer #1 in Yessa's shop then I will ship you a special surprise on the house! Write "Tell Marcy" in the Message to Buyer on ordering, and I'll get your info from Yessa and send it onto you.

Click here to visit her shop!

Print Preview: Spring Work

2009-03-31T19:55:00.013-04:00

Well, its Tuesday-- and I barely made it before the sun went down, but I have lots of new work to share! I looked back on my first Process Post where I shared my sketches and am amazed by how different most of the finished results are. Sometimes I come across a scrap of inspiration and it just seems like far too strong an image to abandon for a thumbnail I've committed to but have grown less and less crazy about. After all, there's no sense in printing at all unless you're so excited you can barely wait to pull away the screen-- and that's how these came to be for me. This group, along with a few leftovers, will be at the next two shows. At that point (hopefully sooner!) I'll have to print up another big batch.

I still plan on making the stones/sequoia diptych from my sketches, and the landscape, but for now it looks like those will come a bit later on this spring.

So here they are, with a little bit on how I arrived at them.

Title: Hiawatha Birches
I love visiting the Upper Peninsula-- its like a whole different world up there. My favorite stretch is just after the Mackinaw Bridge on Highway 2, right along the coast between St. Ignace and Little Bay de Noc. Filled with old tourist traps, smoked fish and pastie shops and tiny painted cabins dotting the road, its wear-- the faded, peeling paint and rusty signs set against the trees, have always seemed magical to me. The best place in the whole state to visit birch trees is right up there in Hiawatha National Forest. This print is a little nod in that direction. I set the trees against various shades of smooth dolphin gray for a nice, neutral pop.

Title: Jade Stalks
We have a little jade plant that's doing really well, so here's my homage to her. I love the juicy leaves on jade that branch off on equal steps along the stem, and also that they grow straight up in the air. There's also an orange/green version of this print. I offset the registration on the leaves and background and don't have an opinion yet on how they turned out-- I might fill in that color with another, more kelly green at a later date.

Title: Vintage Cattails / Vintage Wheat
I had planned on a silhouette of wheat against orange in the original sketches, and taking cues from a retro Riverwalk sign near Michigan's capital city, Lansing, combined two ideas into one to come up with this set. The two tone color combination floats you back to the 70's with a plant silhouette framing one side. The subjects lended themselves very easily to blue and orange tones, and using those complementary colors also means that they look great as a pair.

Title: Log Slice
In my sketches I had a pile of log slices in various sizes, but I really liked the details I had a chance to depict in printing up just one. I got to make some nice rough bark, circles in varying thicknesses, and in troubleshooting a huge dilemma where my contact paper kept leaping from my screen, added the cracks which ended up really making the composition sing.

Title: Fleming Creek
This one is straight from my sketches-- my Fleming Creek woodcut print has been really successful and I wanted to translate the same image via screen print. The blue is a touch more teal in reality, and sets against the dreamsicle orange quite nicely. Reminds me of racing against daylight on the river and of that magical 5 o'clock hour in the summer where the light is stunning.

Title: Resurrection Fern

This is the second print I've named after an Iron and Wine song-- I couldn't help myself. I made a fern print the last time around and wanted to make another that looks a little more toward the actual plant. I did a little fern research and fell fast for the long broad leaves of the resurrection fern. This one will be available is 9x9" glass frames for the same price as regular screen prints. I had to sneak up on this one at a weird angle under lamplight to get an accurate representation of its color and keep glare off the glass, so that's why the photo is a bit wonky.

I have around 150 of these all together, and probably won't list them on Etsy until the first couple of shows are over. (early May) If you're absolutely over the moon for one I'll make a custom listing and get it out to ya in case they sell out! I will also have a special edition screen print offering in May in conjunction with my participation in IndieFixx's Feed Your Soul project.

I would really appreciate any feedback you have on these as I frame them up for shows. Trying to figure out which ones will sell and which ones won't is not a strong suit of mine-- so your comments help me do a little projection!

Now onto woodcuts!

Favorite Things: Charley Harper for Children

2009-03-27T22:57:00.007-04:00

Last week I had the lucky fortune of stumbling on some Charley Harper learning materials for children on clearance.

I contemplated buying it all, but showed a little restraint and walked away with just two items: this ABC's board book and Memory Game. My friend Marissa informed me that night when we were playing Memory at happy hour that she played with one just like it as a kid. By the way, I had forgotten how much fun Memory is-- and hadn't (until last week) experienced the pure joy that is Memory paired with beer. We had a blast!

For more Charley Harper, you can visit this Grain Edit post.
For the best happy hour in Ypsilanti, you can visit the Corner Brewery all day on Monday.
(They have board games if you forget to bring your own. )

One more link! Handmade Detroit has remodeled their site with all sorts of new features!

My weekend officially started at 6pm this evening and runs through Tuesday-- aside from shipping a few orders I will be on ART LOCK IN finishing up the screens and starting woodcuts! It helps that its supposed to snow tomorrow.

Print preview to come on Tuesday!

Etsy Featured Buyer

2009-03-24T18:06:00.008-04:00

I thought I'd bring you a new feature while I'm tied up printing. I see features about Etsy sellers everywhere, and it occurred to me one day that individuals who buy handmade, who see the value in it, are every bit as interesting as makers/sellers.

When I write their name and addresses out on the envelopes I wonder what their lives are like and where they're going to stick the little prints I send them. I wonder what part of them connects to the part of me that I printed on the piece of paper inside the envelope I wrote their name on. I think about what the trees might be like where they live-- because that's the thing I seem to marvel the most at when I travel.

Anyway, I've arranged to have a lovely repeat customer of mine agree to be the very first Etsy Featured Buyer. Her name is Gabriella and she's from Geneva, Switzerland and quite possibly one of the kindest people on Earth.

Here's the questions I asked her, if you have any you'd like to ask in the comments, feel free to do so. If you'd like to become the next Etsy featured buyer you can leave a comment for me on this post!

Tell us a little about yourself.

Hmm - I am an Australian-Italian working in Geneva for an international organization. A former roustabout female, finding her way to cool detachment in her 40s. Hubby, 2 constantly surprising little ones, and a long and colourful past working in various corners of the world from Canberra to Cox's Bazaar, London to the Liberian border.

What compels you to buy handmade?

Family tradition. Both parents were pragmatic, hands-on people: father - could construct most things; mother - could create most other things. Trawling school and church fetes was a big family pasttime, and because we were a big(ish) family, a lot of our clothes and things came from second-hand sources - handmade or vintage (before it was endowed with a capital V). Now, after years of an itinerant lifestyle in locations of varying sophistication, yet all with their own cultural and handcrafted identities, I find myself in the one house with a burning desire to populate the walls, our wardrobes, and our garden with the fruit of the world's expression. When I first visited my father's village in Italy, I was overwhelmed by the honour associated with tatting, weaving or embroidering. This doesn't weigh so much on me now as I know I am not only more than capable of creating things beyond the finer details: theatre costumes, re-vamping old clothes, recycling & renovating furniture. Just as much pleasure comes from collecting and appreciating the work of others.

Tell us about some of your favorite handmade items.

Items made, or even more poignant, started and left unfinished, by my mother, for future grandchildren and left in a bag in her bedroom before she died and before any of us siblings had intentions to start families. A sari from Bangladesh presented to me by my team before moving on; breathtakingly simple and refreshing woodcuts and prints that parse the detail from day-to-day existence and take you back to appreciating the barest essentials: an unfurling fern, leaves, honeycomb, branches of trees

Do you make anything? Dinner counts!

I was actually brought up to understand that anything could be made: i once made a big biscuit for my primary school play about a boy who ate so many biscuits he turned into one (made from cardboard boxes from the supermarket and papermache - half the fun was begging mum to buy the choco-chip biscuits as a 'prototype'!). A friend and I wrote the play, so i suppose in a way it was handmade as well. Bread - I love the basicness of kneading and the pleasure gained from waiting for the dough to rise fullsomely. Marmalade, cakes, scones, pavlova, pies. Labels - crazy, ironic ones. I make-up little stories with continuing themes too as bed-time tales for my little hobgoblins. Laughingly, some of the clothes I buy for myself on Etsy, I end up re-working for my daughter, who unwraps them and covets them away before i even have a chance to try them on.

The philosophy of Etsy is essentially a good, pure thing - I hope this does not get tainted by commercialism over the coming years. It is also such a wonderful didactic experience - enter into an Etsy transaction, and a whole new world of learning and appreciation opens up: I personally try to correspond with sellers as I would if I had physically walked into their shop - it has provided many wonderful journeys of discovery.

Thanks to Gabriella for the riveting peek into her world.

Rad Linkage

2009-03-17T19:36:00.000-04:00

I have been a printing fool over the last few days and have promised myself that I will pump out another edition tonight, so I will keep it short and instead give you a couple of rad links:

1) Frank Chimero

I don't remember the first time I came across Frank Chimero's site, but I keep finding myself clicking on links I like that take me to it, so I thought I'd share it here. His work is part of a rare category that speaks to me across the board-- with both the signs I make in my day job and in the graphic prints I create on my own time.

(I LOVE that glass of iced tea!)

I particularly love this article from his blog. So many great thoughts on design!

2) PrintZero Studios

I also want to pass around this amazing opportunity to participate in a print exchange! I've only participated in a few print exchanges, but I think they're great fun and also a really unique exhibition opportunity. Seems like they usually have kind of steep entry fees and larger image sizes/editions, but this one is only $10, and you only need to send an edition of 15 5x7"s! The deadline is May 15th, so there's plenty of time!

Today we took the canoe out for the first time this year, it was 65 degrees and sunny in the mitten today!

Back to prints!

Oh, Michigan

2009-03-11T20:31:00.006-04:00

I may have mentioned here that we're toying with the thought of leaving Michigan this fall due to the quickly deteriorating local economy. I'm not typically a fair-weather fan, but I've lived in the mitten my whole life and could stand to mix it up a bit. As much as I feel pulled to leave, I occasionally get this nagging feeling that we might be leaving just as big things finally start happening. This feeling was reasserted today on two occasions.

1) There's been discussion for some time about a light rail linking Detroit and Ann Arbor, with an Ypsilanti stop along the way. It looks as if the stimulus package is going to expedite the process, and they're already planning a stop within a few blocks from our place. This would pretty much make my life. 15 minute drives to Ann Arbor and 45 minute drives to Detroit keep us out of there on a regular basis because frankly, some of the activities we enjoy partaking in include alcoholic beverages and we're not fans of the drinking and the driving. This deal will be so sweet for our little Ypsilanti, with patrons coming from both directions to take in the many awesome establishments within a mile of the train stop. More foot traffic means that local businesses and the arts scene will only continue to grow.

2) NPR ran a lovely story about the Power House Project today. Click to listen! Artist Mitch Cope purchased (and facilitated the sale of) some really cheap foreclosed homes in one neighborhood in an effort to create a sense of community, nurture the arts, and support environmental sustainability. The only catch for living in a community minded neighborhood amongst artist and environmental proponents with a $14/month mortgage: you live in Detroit.

Sign me up!

(the Power House!)

Thanks to Ypsilanti blogger Mark Maynard, from whom most of my local haps knowledge flows.

Show Announcement!

2009-03-10T14:55:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I was chosen to be one of thirty vendors at Handmade Detroit's Craft Revival!

Details: Saturday April 18
10-5
@ the Magic Stick
(4120 Woodward Ave. Detroit)

I got somewhat addicted to shows last fall, so I'm really excited to get back to them after a three month hiatus. This show should be interesting because the venue is a little on the darker side and we're encouraged to light our booths up a bit which means that I finally have a reason to coerce Chris into building a log lamp!

So I have six weeks, and its time to get busy! Luckily, I found a really simple solution to my fern measurement snafu yesterday and a major time and money saver in the framing department. Everything should run a little more smoothly and efficiently this time around. My first step today will be to make a nice big calendar of the next month and a half. I'm hoping to make around 200 screen prints and 400 woodcut prints, so planning is essential.

Favorite Things: SPRING

2009-03-08T14:27:00.007-04:00

In addition to hearing thunder and rain in the place of the deafening silence of encroaching snow, I also see signs of spring on the way inside our apartment. The first houseplant I have ever successfully cared for, my little peace lily, blooms about two or three times a year-- one of which is always in March, the same month in which I received her. She just bloomed around the holidays, so I thought that maybe it wouldn't happen this March. I was delighted to wake up last week and see that a bloom had shot up seemingly overnight.

I counted four flowers in various stages of growth when I watered her today, there may be a few more on the way. I love that she opens them up slowly, one after another, to savor this rare moment in the limelight before her return to normal houseplant-dom. It always reminds me of the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi-- that the most beautiful moments happen in the starts and finishes, not the grand crecendos in between. Because these blooms move slowly in sequence there's always a beginning and an end taking place on the same plant whenever she blooms. I like that about her.

(click me for some stamen detail!)

Even though the last few days here have been gray and totally abismal (albeit snowless) this little plant reminds me that sun is on the way.

By the way, if you think you have a brown thumb than a peace lily might be just what you need to gain some confidence in your growing skills. They add a huge jolt of green to your space and respond to less than ideal gardeners with a knack for indirect light and over watering-- you really can't water this plant too much, just set the inside pot on a little pedestal of floral foam so the roots don't sit in the extra water. One of my favorite things about this plant is that the water has an instantaneous effect-- you can see the leaves perk up within five minutes!

Overcoming Bobbin Phobia

2009-03-04T21:53:00.005-05:00

I have feared sewing machines since 6th Grade Home Ec.

For the record, I never would have taken Home Ec., but it came as a package deal with art class and there's no way I wasn't taking art class. I had done just fine with the cooking portion-- my snickerdoodles came out a perfectly composed golden brown-- when the sewing machines came out. We were going to make a pillow. You could chose a soccer ball pillow or a giant misshapen pig head pillow. Being that I was not even remotely inclined toward sports in middle school, I went with the pig head.

So the whole project was four steps: applique felt face pieces, sew together edges, stuff and close. The tricky part was the little felt pig ears. They were supposed to stick out of the seam (for the record the soccer ball had no complex components like this) on either side of the giant head. I got all turned around and flustered and ended up with one ear on the top of my pig's head and one ear-like triangle hoof on the bottom. Combine that with the fact that I tend to ignore the entire concept of seam allowance, and you have the perfect recipe for pillow FAIL.

Fast forward a few years and I'm trying to use my mom's 80lb ancient sewing machine. I would wind the bobbin, figure out how to get it in there and get the whole thread path figured out and then I would touch the pedal ever so lightly and the fabric would get ripped out of my hands in a pile of 20 yards of thread and tangles and tears. For years I chalked it up to simply not having the touch. I'm confused and jealous by crafters who can throw together a pile of sewn goods in minutes, so in sync with their machine that they can floor it and stitch up a skirt in Guiness Book time.

All this time I have been hand sewing everything-- and that's ok. I am drawn to textiles and to putting pieces together, and sewing has always been part of that where I've had a slight sense of fear and anxiety. I love to hand sew and embroider-- I feel totally at ease with a basic needle and thread, its just that sharp machine sewn look that feels so terribly out of reach.

So I asked my sister if she would teach me how to sew yesterday. She came down with her little blue sewing machine and walked me through it for an hour. Then she left it and her whole kit there with the sharp scissors and the hundreds of needles and thread colors and I made this:

My first pencil pouch. Its a little rough around the edges but I'm still a little shocked I made it-- that I actually managed to sew in a zipper. I did plenty of swearing and seam ripping, and I did learn that I can't really make and sell these-- it would take too long to be worth it due to my lack of experience, but still-- I'm very happy I got back on the horse.

Now that I think about it, I'm always happy when I get back on the horse.

Print Preview: Log Slices

2009-02-28T00:02:00.005-05:00

I'm back in the saddle and I've been thinking about the best way to make this log print from my sketch book all day-- it originally started as a pile of logs, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around how that might be conducive to the method I use. So I decided to focus on one little log slice and I'm loving how it turned out-- I think turning this idea of many logs into one was really smart.

This is the first screen in the print. I'll go in with a orangier brown next and screen it on top of the center (which will pull the tree rings back a little and let the bark come forward and then I may or may not put a barely there blue around the edges. Once its wrapped around the frame the log will take up most of the composition all but a few tiny corners around the edge exposed.

I'm also going to intentionally off-set register the other screens this time, so I'm really excited to see how it all turns out. More to come!

measure once, cut twice

2009-02-23T20:54:00.007-05:00

Already a snafu! My coworkers in the Art Dept. will tell you that this is how I start all major projects-- spilled paint, a wrong cut, painting an entire chalkboard upside down-- the list goes on and on and on.

I carelessly measured the fabric for this first edition, and now I'm discovering that I didn't make the cuts large enough to wrap around the frame. I'm off by TWO inches on one side! How I didn't notice this is beyond me.

On the upside, the prints themselves turned out quite nice-- in trying to turn lemons into lemonade I framed up one and turned another into a quick pencil pouch and they look lovely either way. Even if I don't use them I'm only out $12 in fabric, a little ink, and around 3 hours of my time.

I'm struggling this time with how many supplies to acquire at a time. This fall I bought supplies in many waves because I was never quite that confident that I would sell enough to make the cost back. This is especially true with fabric-- I don't know how many collective hours of my life I spent in the cutting line these last few months. Even last week I only bought three yards, half of which I already used on this 'oops' edition. Tonight I've decided that my new motto is GO BIG OR GO HOME. I'm buying 6 yards next time because I will obviously use them. I think making a big supplies investment will encourage me to get going!

Since I have nothing to show for my evening I'll leave you with this Handmade Portrait on Etsy that melted my heart. Etsy puts out these little documentaries featuring their artists from time to time, and this one might just be my favorite, though I absolutely love what SunnyRising has to say about the nature of sharing processes with others in her portrait, and also when WoodMouse discusses the benefits to open-ended toys in hers.

This one is particularly sweet though-- maybe because I find it really easy to imagine my third chapter years this way-- though I'd probably have to find a way to get around the raising my own chickens part. I had an incident on my uncle's farm involving one very nasty chicken at the impressionable age of 5 and I have never been able to get past it, but that's another story for another day.

Today's story is about Robin and Kathy Tucker of Wood Mosaics.

Favorite Things: Secondhand Picture Map Puzzle

2009-02-23T16:29:00.003-05:00

I found this Picture Map Puzzle of the United States several months ago and did a happy dance of glee right then and there. It reminds me of textbook thematic maps in elementary school-- the type that would illustrate agricultural or industrial data in social studies texts.

This isn't a superb shot, but the detail is incredible and varied about this country we all share. It sits in a shelf above my kitchen sink and the amazing illustration inspires me on a daily basis.

It also helps me to remember the Alamo!

Etsy Updates

2009-02-22T16:14:00.003-05:00

I've done a little housekeeping on Etsy this morning, adding some new images to previous listings and reducing my shipping rates (yay!)

I finally put together all of my shipping costs (packaging/time/postal rates etc) and felt like it was possible to lower them, especially on subsequent items purchased. I've been trying to streamline my shipping process, which is a little difficult because I love making packages look pretty and also try to ship with reused materials as much as possible. If it were up to my boyfriend I'd stick it in the free Priority mail box and get it over with (he doesn't really care for my ever rotating cardboard "collection") but I try to reuse as much as possible to that end.

Speaking of reusing, I'm trying out listing some canvas panels unframed for $3 a pop. If you sew then these panels would be awesome and really unique for a wide variety of projects, or you can just frame them yourself and save a little cost. These are the last puppies at the pound so to speak, so they're not perfect, but would still make really interesting objects. I can't wait to see what comes from them!

Other than that I'm just putting together images to apply for some spring and summer shows. I'm going to throw together some dinner and start my first new screen print!

Process Post: Time to go Shopping!

2009-02-21T22:25:00.010-05:00

I have the next three days off and will be holing myself up in the apartment making screen prints. The snow is back in SE Michigan (boo) which will make a pajamas and coffee lifestyle much more appealing during my off days.

I have enough materials to get started, but will be ordering again from Dick Blick this weekend to take advantage of the 5.95 shipping deal they haphazardly host every so often. So it seems appropriate to discuss the next stage after ideas: materials acquisition. But! In order to talk about the materials needed to make screen prints, its important to shed some light on exactly what screen printing is, so that's what I'll try to do below and talk about materials in one big convoluted post with lots of non-sequiturs. Ready?

The basic premise of screen printing is stenciling. Remember in the 80's and 90's when stenciling was all the rage and people bought those plastic stencils and tappy brushes and stenciled country kitchen borders everywhere?

(I'm having mauve flashbacks!)

Here's an example of a pretty awesome and refreshing stenciling job in case you're interested in seeing this process work in a more modern way:

(mm... tone on tone goodness. Unfortunately, I've had this photo saved on my computer for eons and have no idea where it came from-- maybe Design Sponge?)

Martha is leading the charge in bringing stenciling back to home decor in a hip way (another story for another day) but I use this example to illustrate the idea that screen printing is really just making a rather complicated stencil-- the methods involved are much more precise though. Instead of the spotty tapped-on look, screen printing results in a smooth, graphic application of ink and can be printed many times with consistent results.

Side note: Here's a Crafter post on freezer paper stencils if you'd like to get your hands on this method without a lot of start up costs.

Obviously, I could talk about stenciling on walls all day, but I'm a renter and doing so makes me sad, so I'll leave it at that!

The most obvious tool you need to stencil is some kind of plate or buffer where paint can be pushed through the exposed areas to create the image. In screen printing this tool is the actual screen frame-- a wood frame with thin mesh stretched tight across the back. Some people make these, some people buy them. I've done both, and am ambivalent about which is better. My DIY spirit says 'make it!' but the cost differential isn't huge. You can get a decent sized screen for under $20.

(from dick blick)

The mesh stretched across creates a sort of blank canvas of tiny open pixels. If you've ever examined a screen door or window closely you notice that there are tiny little negative spaces created between the criss-crossing strands of wire. In the screen frame mesh these spaces are very small, so when ink is pushed through some and not others the results are very precise.

If you printed off the screen right out of the box, you'd get a flat even coat of ink across your surface because all of those spaces in the mesh are open. You create an image by controlling those open spaces. You control the open spaces by blocking parts of the screen so that the ink can't get through.

There are many methods for blocking the mesh in the spaces you don't want printed, and they range from very simple with little investment to very complex with lots of light bulbs and chemicals and fancy machines that burn your image into a screen coating.

I use a very simple method because I don't have the setup for the the other stuff, and I don't like using all of the harsh chemicals to clean the screen afterward. I also like the method I use because it forces me to create simple images. I have a tendency to push an image 'too far'-- the reason why I was, in my own opinion, never that great a painter. If I have direct control over the image I don't know when to leave well enough alone!

Rather than burning an image I've drawn onto a screen, or using drawing fluid to apply it directly to the screen, I use a method where I cut my image out of a film that is applied to the screen. Cutting forces me to think in simple terms. Its a restriction that helps me.

Which leads me to the next supply item: clear Contact paper. I capitalize the Contact because Contact brand works the best. As tempting as it may be to pick up a roll on your next trip to Target (they carry some other knock-off brand) don't do it! You can find it in the housewares section of most department or hardware stores and it looks like this:

(look for the brand Contact! I swear they're not paying me!)

You cut your image out, stick the paper onto the back of your screen and viola! The mesh is open in your image. This will make more sense when I post about the actual process.

You'll need something to print on. I use canvas for the most part because its sturdy, looks great and stretches nicely. You can find canvas on the bolt (also known as duck cloth) at any fabric store for around $8 a yard. I'm not a big JoAnn's fan but I always buy a bunch there when they mail me a 50% off coupon. Do not buy it in the fine arts section at an art supplies store: they charge way more for virtually the same thing.

You can screen print on anything you can get your screen under. Tote bags, t-shirts, furniture, wood, paper-- the possibilities are endless. The ink will do different things depending on what you're printing on. Canvas is great because the ink actually seeps into the thick fabric-- if you print on paper it just sits on top of the surface.

Here's a chunk of my banner-- you can see how the ink reacts to the canvas and pools a little in the valleys created by the weave. I feel like this method provides an extra layer of texture and softness that isn't there when you print on paper.

So next you'll need ink. I have a fun and inexpensive shortcut here, too. You can buy little jars for ink for $5-10 a pop, but I feel like the color is too strong and abrasive. I buy what's called an extender base (a clear fluid with a snot-like consistency) and then tint it with acrylic paint. You can pick up a big ol quart of Speedball Extender Base for around $12.

So you'll need paint too if you go this route. Here's quite possibly the only instance I've ever encountered where craft paint works better. Its more fluid and mixes into the extender with greater ease.

You'll also need:

- a squeegee (like the window washing kind-- Target has an awesome one with a clear handle and black rubber)
- spatulas
- little plastic containers (save your yogurt cups!)

Next time I'll cover the first part of the printing process!

Process Post: Idea Time!

2009-02-17T12:22:00.001-05:00

Writing out my process for pulling ideas together has been difficult, but really helpful. This stage is definitely the most organized I'll ever be in working through a group of prints.

So I feel like I've got a decent handle on what comes next. Perhaps the most important lesson I took from printing in my undergrad was not to try to say too much with my work. Coincidentally, I didn't learn this message until after I finished the degree. You should see my final pieces about women authors, yikes! I actually sewed a real spoon onto a canvas and modge podged rocks into the pocket of a handmade apron for a piece about Virginia Woolfe. It was bad.

These days, I try not to fill work with grand, sweeping meanings but with simple truths. Sometimes I try to think of it like a poem, where writing a beautiful line about the unnoticed detail carries more weight than the tired cliche. Anyway, I might need to pull in the reigns a bit more on this group-- there's certainly a lot going on in it.

Oh, I also want to say this about the idea stage: I am a firm proponent of idea freedom! Many artists try to bottle up their ideas into tight little copyright bottles as if they were handed to them by God himself. The idea that artists have these original visual epiphanies is a myth. Everything builds on what's come before. With that in mind, I think pulling from others is not only ok, but kind of necessary. There is, however, a big difference between a copy and an original-- it should be taken and then made your own-- made better or different or put together with something new and interesting.

I'm going to put these in steps for the sake of saving a little type:

1) I thought about the work I had made before. In previous work I focused completely on simple natural images-- some stylized to meet a graphic aesthetic, others more subtle and organic. I've decided to keep going in that direction, but to pull toward the more subtle from now on.

2) Find new meanings. So once I figure out the general direction, I try to find a few new ways to approach the images I will be pulling together. Its like a game-- once you know what the category is going to be, it becomes a lot easier to find items that fit within it.

My first focus is in going from macro to micro. I'm going to pull out far enough to depict a topographic map of Yellowstone Nat'l Park and then zoom in, one print after another, until I'm at the cellular level. This difference won't be a super big deal-- I won't sell them all as a set that can line up from one to the other or anything, but I'd like see what happens when I pull in slowly, and its help me explore some images that I would otherwise leave be.

The other way I'm going to broaden my scope is to commit a few works to exploring how humans and nature interact. How we study it, consume it, collect it, etc. Again, not to display together, but because its helped me better find images.

3) Impose limits.
These have the potential to be all over the place visually because of the ways I'm building on what I've done before, so in order to keep them under the same umbrella I'm committing to a few aesthetic choices:

1) Softer colors-- lots of white ink
2) Using more screens in each piece for a less graphic, more gradual effect
3) Organic, not harsh line work
4) Using natural, unbleached canvas.

4) Play Pictionary with yourself.
Next I start making lists. I filled a few pages in my sketchbook with random words: agate, brush, prarie, driftwood, stone wall, etc. Anything that fell into the range of my broad categories above. I went back and starred the ones that seemed interesting and circled any I had a personal connection with or was really excited about.

Then I turned those into some rapid thumbnail sketches, and decided that I liked where they were going or didn't. Some I scrap, some I think about and come back to, some I love and keep. I also think about prints I've made in the past, and if revisiting any of those ideas will fit in nicely with the sketches that are coming up.

So here's that list organized by each print type and size, going from micro to macro. I try to assign another word at this point to better describe them.

8x8" screen prints: leaf zoom, honeycomb, overlapping iris, circling fern, vintage wheat, driftwood collection, log pile, water table, rural british landscape.

4x16" screen print diptych: river stones(micro) and a rooted redwood tree (macro)
These will sell separate or together for a deal-- I'm really excited about this one!

Woodcuts: plant cells, stones, fleming creek, braided root, nest, Yellowstone map.

5) Render images several times.
Then I sketch it out a little more-- usually I add color to make sure they're all kind of working together. The color is in no way accurate, but gives me more information than pencil alone. I make small sketches because I think drawing is kind of boring and I like seeing everything on a page together.

So I make tiny ones that don't take long-- these are in a little 5x8" book.

On the left are some of the square screenprint ideas-- on the right is the diptych. They're kind of doodley at this point-- the printing process is great because I lose a lot of control over what they look like-- the end results won't be nearly as bubbly. They'll look nothing like this at the end, but its a start!

I'm going to start with screen prints this time because I feel like those came together a little more naturally than the woodcut prints during this process. Working back and forth allows me to put some ideas 'behind the couch' as an art teacher once said to me. She was a big fan of things working out in their time-- without being forced. So am I.

A very slight shop update

2009-02-13T23:58:00.006-05:00

I spent tonight tweaking my shop banner a bit-- I think my photoshop skills are slightly improved since I last made it, and wanted it saved as a .png so its a little less fuzzy

I'd throw up a before and after for comparison, but I just realized that I don't have a before anymore! I bought a new computer this week and its either hidden in some super secret folder from my old files or the banner on etsy was my only copy!

Anyway, here's the new banner:

The back image has changed to a plant cell diagram, the text color is a little lighter than it was before, and I filled the little tree with a different woodgrain and refined it a bit. Just for fun (and because I was curious about this font) I made an entirely new banner as well:

I love how this turned out-- the font is really unique and the distressed look came together nicely. It just doesn't seem to match up with what I'm trying to do though-- there's something about it that doesn't do it for me-- too old fashioned maybe. I'll actually save this one though (what a concept!) and maybe pull it out in the future. It might work nicely with this group of prints I'm stringing together right now.

Speaking of new prints, I've started some sketches for this new series of prints and made a lot of choices already about which direction I'll be going in. One of my goals with this blog was to share the total process of screen and woodcut prints from idea inception to matting and framing, so look for the first post of that series in the next few days. Instead of working print by print, I'll be carrying this new work through each step at the same time and making much larger editions than before, so it'll be a journey worth documenting.

There is Only Make (literally)

2009-02-11T19:01:00.003-05:00

No sooner did I write about my incredible first issue of Craft magazine than the O'Reilly publication closed their print shop and threw in the towel. Craft is also folding-- or, as they call it to soften the blow: ceasing to exist in print.

Current subscribers like myself will now be getting the rest of our subscriptions filled with Craft's parent publication Make, which seems to look a bit like the musty old collection of Post-war Popular Science magazines that my grandparents kept in their basement when I was a kid.

By that I mean to say: boring and involving lots of tubes and wires.

If only Dwell weren't so damn bougy-- looks like I'll be ingesting strictly an online inspiration diet from now on. I'm pretty sure print is dying.

On My Nests

2009-02-09T15:09:00.008-05:00

An Etsy shopper recently inquired about the wall that I photograph prints on, so I thought I'd show you the whole thing in all of its glory. This is the left living room wall in our 'nest'-- where most of my Etsy photos are taken:

I have a spot on here (currently occupied with a honeycomb print) for rotating 8x8 screenprints for photos. Of the other prints-- some of the prints are mine, some were made by others-- around half of them are rotated and replaced with some frequency.

Of what's always up: the photo is of my grandparents woods. The long topographic looking bit is embroidery on dyed cotton made last year-- I have a wood plate drawn out that will return me to maps (where some of my fine art work from college is from) to print in the next few weeks. The teal map of the world is mounted on foam board above the lamp and was recently acquired for $1 at an Ann Arbor thrift store. At night the lamp light hits it and it looks amazing.

The cabinet below was another thrift find-- hand carved mid-century mod for $14 at our local Salvation Army. After finding it I literally RAN to the front of the store to get a cart to fetch it. Its really hard to find that sort of thing around here-- it was my lucky day!

The gorgeous danish modern chair belonged to my boyfriend's parents-- the joints fit together so well it feels like it was carved away from a single piece of wood and sanded for years. I wish you could see the legs-- they're so nicely done and the lines have such a clean organic feel.

We have an huge south facing window just on the other side of the plants that actually raises the temp. of our apartment on sunny days. We get a lot of light of this place on even the bleakest Michigan winter days, so I'm thankful for that.

As for the actual nests that birds live in, I am working on some new ones. My woodcut editions of the Robin's Nest (all in all-- around 200 prints!) are sold out, and I am done with them! I stuck this little nest on a chalkboard at work last week, and might be adapting it for screen prints:

Maybe a new woodcut too. I am starting to apply for Spring/Summer shows, and would like, for the most part, to kind of launch everything all at the same time, with a similar feeling and aesthetic. I'm trying to figure out exactly what that is right now-- I do know it's going to be more subtle than the work I've been making for the most part.

After June I will be turning my focus to finding a teaching job and, in all likilhood, leaving the mitten-- so I want this set to all work together and carry me through that time.

Q: What's for Dinner? A: Mexican Layer Awesomeness!

2009-02-08T19:29:00.007-05:00

(bonus: its pretty!)

I really don't have any excuses not to keep fresh produce in the house at all times, but I hate when we can't eat it in time and I have to pitch it! At least once a week I try to make something that uses up all of these fresh ingredients and some leftovers-- this morning we had loaded omelets and tonight I dumped another half of our refrigerator contents into this recipe.

Basically its a burrito with layers of filling in between each of 4 tortillas. Here's what I used for each layer-- this would be delicious with whatever's sitting in your fridge though!

1) fat free refried beans
2) browned and seasoned ground turkey
3) more refried beans and a cream cheese/canned green chilies spread (just add 2oz cream cheese and a splash of milk to 1/2 can of chilies, microwave until warm and blend-- its like a jalapeno popper spread)
4) spanish rice: leftover brown rice, roasted corn, dried red pepper flakes, and a tiny splash of tomato chutney or tomato paste (heated together in a pan first)

I layered these between flour tortillas in a pie pan and baked the whole thing at 350 for about 25 minutes with tin foil on top. Then I removed the tin foil and allowed the top tortilla to crisp up. I took it out and added some sweet red bell pepper slices and green onions and then served it up with romaine and spring greens on top. This would also be really easy to make vegetarian-- we have delicious soy chorizo at the store that I might throw in next time!

(it was so tasty and I have no wasted produce guilt!)

Custom Orders

2009-02-06T01:00:00.006-05:00

shh.. its past my bedtime! I had to squeeze in a quick post about two recent orders though.

The first print was created for Jason Rozen of Grinding Tapes Recording Co. Jason originally ordered a single Honeycomb print and then we worked together to create an entire grouping of Honeycomb prints, the larger one with a zoomed in feel that proportionally works out perfectly when hung next to two smaller prints.

It was a challenge creating this larger print-- fitting together images on two different screens was quite the exercise for my often neglected left-brain, but it came out just lovely despite an evening filled with expletives! The larger print is 17x17" and is also stretched (tight as a drum!) onto a custom made frame. The canvas in larger pieces can dent much more easily than the 8x8"s I usually sell, so stretching it as tight as it can go and using lots of staples is much more important.

I also recently finished a project for my dear friends Adam and Joel. They have these adorable matching yellow kayaks, so we thought it would be cute if I appliqued them onto "Someday the Waves"

I embroidered in a hearty brown split stitch onto hand-dyed 'safety yellow' cotton and then used fabric bonder to apply them to the canvas. I'm so glad I used the thinner cotton-- I love how you can see the ghost of the waves underneath! I also fell back in love with embroidery a little bit while working on these prints-- maybe it'll show up in the shop again sometime soon!

I found myself out and out pining for a summer day on the river as I worked on these-- Michigan winters are torture! This week its been exceptionally nasty frostbite-through-gloves kind of cold.

All right, to bed!

Favorite Things: Brownie Edition

2009-01-31T22:30:00.005-05:00

Its hard working in a grocery store. We have delicious food of every variety constantly around. Christmas candy season is the worst. The other night I was cruising the aisles looking for something delicious that didn't list butter as the first ingredient, and I settled my gaze on this:

At first I was all 'ehh... these will probably taste like cardboard'. They don't, and in fact, I strongly encourage you to eat these brownies. Straight away.

Pros:
1) Prep is simple-- they mix up with a little fat free vanilla yogurt.
2) There's a really easy microwave recipe for a single serving, which strongly curbs my needs to leave the knife in the brownie pan and return 20 times throughout the evening. Instead I mix up the little single serving, pop it in the microwave for 45 seconds (perfect fudge-ocity) and then eat it right there in the kitchen in all of its hot delicious glory.
3) 110 calories, no fat. It feels like you're getting away with something.

Cons:
none as of yet, though I'll keep you posted.

I have a four day weekend, so I'm taking advantage and working on a couple of prints and a custom order. Look for them up the shop by Monday.

Craft x2

2009-01-28T21:02:00.003-05:00

Back in that ever so heavy-handed rant about Target a few weeks ago I mentioned that maybe we'll start to see design activated on a local level, or perhaps we'll find that there are simply more attempts at making corporate design appear handmade.

What I couldn't find in that moment was an example of this trend-- Adam later brought it to my attention that we'd had a discussion previously about one recent and glorious example:

Starbucks. Holiday 2008. Very Crafty.

In other updates of the creative variety, I received my first edition of Craft Magazine today and was thrilled to see Amy Sedaris gracing the front cover. She wrote an article inside on parties and shares a hilarious angel food cake step-by-step. I love her brand of funny because it always seems like everything is perfect on the surface, but a closer inspection reveals that something is terribly, disturbingly wrong. I uploaded a photo of the cover because its such a perfect example-- I didn't even notice she had smooshed cake clasped between her hands until later.

(click to see larger)

PS-- if you're Craft Magazine or Handmade Detroit reading this, thanks for the free year of issues! I can't say it was the highlight of having a table at the show (because that was 8 hours of meeting incredibly awesome people) but I was super excited to win a bonus door prize! I usually only drool over issues at the art supplies store.

Subscribe to Craft here.

I was informed today via Design Sponge that Domino Magazine is closing up shop, so it looks as though this subscription of Craft started just in time-- though I think I will find Domino hard to replace. I didn't approach Domino so much as a shopping mag (because I can't afford and wouldn't want a $2000 ottoman) but I think it was a great resource for inspiration and for keeping up with trends on design's place in the home.

What I would love to see is a shelter magazine like Domino that featured exclusively handmade and salvaged/thrifted art and goods. Now that would be exciting.

Favorite Things: Google Reader Feeds Edition

2009-01-24T15:47:00.009-05:00

If you're not familiar, Google Reader is tool that allows you to track internet information and blog entries from a variety of sources in one convenient place-- like your own constantly updating internet library of favorites. I check it almost every day-- here's a handful of my must reads.

1) GOOD Magazine Blog
GOOD, which I also subscribe to (you can name your subscription rate, so its entirely affordable) is an amazing magazine jam packed with visuals-- graphs, diagrams, charts-- it completely entertains my visual leaning mind and fills it with useful information. It constantly references the greater world, and helps me remember to think outside of my bubble.

2) Cake Wrecks
Cake Wrecks is a hilarious blog with photo after photo of cakes gone bad. My favorites are the cakes where the client presents the baker with a specific photo and winds up with a much different result. Don't read with a drink-- you'll spit it everywhere.

3) Obsessive Consumption
Kate Bingaman-Burt draws everything she buys and posts it for you to see. She often adds side comments about how she feels about her purchases or what drives her to buy them. I find the personal habits of others highly entertaining, so this stream is really delightful. She also has a really cute illustration style-- her daily drawings definitely push me to maintain a sketchbook.

4) Nothing But Bonfires
Holly Burns' is a British ex-pat living in San Francisco who has a really lovely writing style. She's funny and self-deprecating, and despite her constant assertion that she's boring, leads a really interesting life as she bounces around the globe visiting family and writing for Travelocity. She also makes occasional Best!Things!Ever! posts, which is where the idea for My Favorite Things came from.

5) Post Secret
Another site that fills my need to better understand human idiosyncrasies. Here's how it works-- you make an anonymous post card that shares a secret. You mail it to Frank. Frank scans it and posts them all on Sunday morning. Then I sit at home and wonder about the story behind it while I drink my coffee.

If you have any favorites I would love to hear about them! If you'd like to add this blog to your a feed program like Google Reader, there's a link on the sidebar.

I make jewelry?

2009-01-20T00:02:00.004-05:00

So I've had my eye on beautiful nest necklaces like these for a long time. They immediately made me think of my mom, who has three daughters and taught me everything I know about having an earthy, rustic sensibility and style. I knew she'd love one, it was just a matter of when I'd pick one up.

As I investigated further I thought they seemed a little chunky I wanted something lighter and a little messier-- so I rounded together a few supplies and tried my hand at making a pendant of my own. It was actually really easy to put together with a trip to the store and some jeweler's pliers. I found these tiny turquoise/sea green beads and used less wire to put this one together:

(by the way: I thought it was hard to photograph prints, jewelry is much harder- even with a macro lens. I have a whole new appreciation for those amazing jewelry photos I see on etsy)

So its a tad wonky, but for the size I was aiming for (it measures just under 1/2" across and is remarkably light) its dainty and perfect. I now have supplies to make.. ohh... 50 more of these. I already had clasps and findings, so once I bought the wire and beads I immediately had a ton of materials.

I may do a shop giveaway or two with them around Valentine's Day-- at the very least, I have gift inspiration for awhile.

Other great jewelers to check out on Etsy: Ragtrader (I picked up a stunning twig necklace from her in November which I love and wear with almost everything) .... and more locally ChainChainChained (my table was next to hers at Etsy at the Market this past fall, and I loved the work there.

If you haven't purchased jewelry on Etsy, I would highly recommend either of these sellers-- the goods are really high quality, and they both have great prices.

I had a lovely three day weekend putting together a record number of orders following my Buy One Get One sale. Thanks to everyone who picked up a print or two or six (like my new Medici, Rachel) My closet is significantly less cluttered, my prints are reorganized, and I am looking forward to what's next. I even figured out what to do with those prints with a dinged corner or two, but I'm going to have to save that for next time because I have an action-packed day of sign making in exactly nine hours.

Goodnight!

This Land was Made for You and Me.

2009-01-18T21:23:00.000-05:00

Happy Inauguration Week!

I have a hard time putting into words how amazing, beautiful and symbolic this moment is for me, for us. That 46 years and a day after "I Have A Dream" this man can take the oath of office on Lincoln's Bible. After living for so many years with the door closed, finally the light will again shine in. Everything had to happen the way that it did. It is written.

Buy One Get One Sale!

2009-01-18T21:12:00.003-05:00

After combing through my inventory and trying to figure out where I'm going to put new work (under the bathroom sink?) I've decided to throw in a freebie of your choice when you place an order. I would much rather see it up on your wall than hidden away in my closet, so....

Drumroll Please...
Purchase any print at regular price, and I will throw in another item (of equal or lesser value) for free!!!

Edit: One exception: due to the elevated cost and materials needed to ship glass, I cannot send a $20 framed print with the purchase of an $20 framed print. So if you purchase a framed print at that price, you are limited to any screen print or unframed woodcut print. Unless your name is Rachel, because that means that you ordered before I realized it and you win!!

now through Sunday, Jan 18th.

You can leave the print you'd like in the Message to Buyer section once you've placed your order. If you forget, I will contact you and ask which one you'd like, or you can feel free to email or convo me.

At the very least, you could pick up a 5x7" woodcut print for free-- the above four are all available in the shop right now.

If you'd like to pick up a gift and get a little something for yourself too, then this is the perfect opportunity.

Experimentation

2009-01-17T11:03:00.003-05:00

So I have been fine-tuning how I do things over the last few weeks. I've learned that everything related to growing a creative business is about trial and error. I've only been doing this for around six months, and I've already learned so many lessons. I've learned that being present with my work is more successful than leaving it somewhere-- that fairs and shows are much more suited for it than exhibitions are. I've learned that its important to engage people visually and mentally, to share your stories-- although this is something I would have done anyway. Perhaps that's part of what makes Etsy such a wonderful tool-- that you can share the story behind a piece right there.

The lessons I've been working on lately have been more practical in nature. The paper I have been using for woodcut prints these last few months (Japanese rice paper) is beautiful and delicate, and perfect for hand pulling prints, as I have been doing. But-- it bruises so easily, and is pretty floppy. I have been backing it with reused corrugated cardboard, but the paper will bend around the cardboard, and get all roughed up, especially if the print is at a show and hundreds of hands are flipping through it.

So I asked for a tabletop press for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and am now using heavier textured card stock. The new paper is sturdy enough that a backing isn't necessary, it comes in a variety of colors, and doesn't get bruised up unless you force it! The overhead is a little more, but in the end, I'm not tossing almost perfectly good prints with a dinged corner or two. (Anyone want a perfectly good print with a dinged corner or two?)

I printed up a few Fleming Creek prints on this stock yesterday:

and love how they turned out. I bought some nice greens and browns too, some more will probably show up the shop throughout the weekend.

I've also been working finding ways to brand everything a little more cohesively. I purchased a custom-made stamp with the shop address on it (in Futura, my favorite mid-century font) and created a tiny lino-cut leaf to accompany it on correspondence and on prints.

I also thought I might be motivated to get extra prints matted/framed/stretched/photographed if I gave myself some kind of deadline, so I signed up for the Reinvent Your Space showcase on Friday.

This showcase didn't do wonders in terms of sales, but it did pay for itself and might drum up future sales, which is important to consider. All in all-- I probably wouldn't buy a slot again though.

I never thought business was that interesting, but I have come to look at it differently. You can see a direct correlation between cause and effect, and its fun to try new things and see what happens.