Imaginary Best Friend Forever

I discovered the blog of Maira Kalman on the New York Times website over the weekend and was so blown away. Her mixture of painting, prose, history, plus her ability to expand the definition of what a blog can be is so inspiring. So far I read this month’s entry about Thomas Jefferson and April’s about the Supreme Court and women’s rights. Amazing. I cannot wait to read the others.

Utera Maxima

This is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. A giant, stuffed womb? Um, yes please!

Get your own at Vulvalovelovely.etsy.com.

New Stamps

In April, I made a large (and somewhat ill-advised) stamp purchase from usps.com. The problem: I failed to consider the rate change that took effect in May. Whoops. I love the stamps I chose– Latin American Jazz, Chinese New Year and some other colorful choices– but it hurts my heart a little to have to pair them on every order I send with these horribly ugly 2 cent stamps. Ugh.

In the meantime, I spent some time today browsing the new stamp slections online today, and found a couple nice sets. It’ll be a while before I can order any more, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

All in the Game, yo.

This time last year I was knee-deep in The Summer of “The Wire.” Previously, the only thing I knew about the show was that Teri Gross of “Fresh Air” couldn’t stop talking about it, interviewing whoever she could from the show every chance she got. I’m sometimes I little late on pop culture phenomena (especially when they involve a cable premium channel I’d have to pay for), so the Wire craze sort of passed me by while it was actually on TV. That is, until my then-new boyfriend sat me down one night and introduced me to his favorite thing in the world. Within one episode, I was hooked.

What followed were three months watching the entire run of the show, episode by episode, DVD by DVD, season by season. I had to take a break between Season 4 and 5, trying to delay the inevitable end, but by September, we’d done it all. Carcetti was mayor, Prez had redeemed himself, you never quite knew what it was that it was Daniels did back in the day, Freeman was a detective once again, partnered with Bunk, Poot was off the corner and working at Foot Locker, Bubbles had redeemed himself…

Recently, Ben’s been trying to convince me to start over from the beginning again. I don’t know if I can handle a second summer in West Baltimore– I like having it as a memory, and I’m a little worried that watching it again, it would lose some of the impact it had the first time around– but in the meantime, I made a little homage to my new favorite show– Bunk Moreland, the cigar-chomping veteran homicide detective, and his unlikely match, Omar Little, the stick-up artist with a strict moral code (who is also, on a total sidenote, Barack Obama’s favorite character on his favorite show).

In the Works

Some of what I’ve been thinking–

Vivian Girls

I’ve been immersed in Henry Darger the last few days. I visited the Henry Darger room installation at Intuit Gallery here in Chicago last year, as well as the exhibition of some of his collages, and have been enamored by his work ever since. I love the muted colors, the fantastical creatures and all that can be read into his androgynous children vs. grown-ups storyline. The installation, too, as amazing– the piles and piles of ephemera, all the paints and art supplies, the feel of his tiny little room.

This week I worked on a custom order for Ben’s mom– 3 of the 7 Vivian Girls as a gift for his aunt. The Vivian Girls, if you aren’t familiar with Darger’s work, are the heroines of his epic story/paintings. They’re seven little girls, based on paper dolls and other advertising images, who battle evil adults who would enslave all the children of the world. Yeah, weird, I know. But awesome.

There were so many depictions of them to chose from, but I based my girls mostly on these paintings–

Indieana Wrap-Up

Well, I’m back in the big city, starting to unpack after a quick and busy Indianapolis weekend. The Handicraft Exchange was a great time– beautiful weather, good crowd, friendly people, lovely crafts, plus lots of family and old friends stopping by.

The best part of any fair, to me, is meeting new people and discovering talented crafters I didn’t know about before (or at least hadn’t seen in person). My neighbors at the fair were super friendly, which is always great. Behind me was Matthew Reidsma who draws super cute comics. I didn’t really have a chance to read through them, which is a shame, but I love his style, and these little ink drawings he had for sale on his etsy–

Also Wendy of Windy Weather Bindery had lovely handmade journals with the most beautiful fabrics, and this super fun little zine about making yogurt. Some day maybe that can be a project to undertake

Next to my table was Matt Cipov, an illustrator with some awesome prints. My brother came and ended up taking home half a dozen zombies for the “Zombie Bathroom” to-be in their brand new house. Me, I was totally digging the forest animal prints and, of course, the owls.

It seems like at nearly every craft fair, I end up buying something from the booth across from me– All those long hours staring at all the goodies, its hard to resist. This time, I was (just barely) able to resist, but not for lack of pretty things to buy. Freshie and Zero has the loveliest work–one of the hammered metal necklaces may end up coming home with me at some point in the future…

I also talked with very nice Eric of Eric Erf Wood Designs. His birdhouses from reclaimed materials are so interesting– not the design aesthetic I’m usually attracted to, but I really really liked all the interesting reclaimed pieces of wood and metal. He’s from Chicago, so I look forward to finding an excuse to gift one of these sometime soon. His work is featured all over the city– at Whole Foods and Renegade Handmade, so look for them!

Anyway, it was a super fun weekend. I like this fair because it’s an excuse to go home, and there’s never a shortage of friends who’re willing to sit and chat during the long day, which makes it fly by. Here’s to the start of another craft fair season!

Almost Ready

In addition to the final paper that’s been dogging me all week (which I finally turned in today!) I’ve been sewing like crazy this week. I’ve completed close to 30 puppets in the past three days, plus some new canvases and stuffies, all in anticipation of the Indieana Handicraft Exchange this weekend. None of my craft fair display supplies had really been out of their boxes in the past six months, not since Renegade Holiday back in December, so it’s taken some time to find and collect everything… and I’m not looking forward to hauling it all from the 3rd floor to the car tonight. But, besides that, I’m looking forward to going home for a few days, seeing some old friends and family, and what’s sure to be a great show!

Animal and monster puppets

Character puppets, ready to be packaged

Indiana stuffies, especially for the Hoosiers this weekend.

Felt Engagement

Rebecca contacted me through etsy a few months back about commissioning custom puppets of her and her fiance, Jacob, for use in their engagement photos. I sewed and sewed and revised and sewed to get the details and likenesses just right and above you can see the result that Rebecca sent along– ridiculously cute, right?! I love it!  (the photo is linked to their photographer’s website)

Fab Four

For some reason, I couldn’t get this video to embed, but click on the picture above to check it out. It is really great, I love the imagery!

I could really care less about Rock Band itself. Ben has the drums and plays them occasionally, but he did mention that this version is supposed to let you do harmonies, which I would enjoy. I taught myself to sing harmony by listening to early Beatles in high school (sopranos never have to learn harmonies so I had to take it upon myself) so I bet I would like that aspect. Maybe they’ll make it for Wii. In the meantime, I could watch this trailer all day.