Showing posts with label shows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shows. Show all posts

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Holiday Show Recap: Part 2

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!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Holiday Show Recap: Part 1

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!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Goings On

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.

______________________________________________

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.


__________________________________________

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!


Saturday, September 19, 2009

This Weekend!


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!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

this weekend!


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!

Monday, August 31, 2009

Print Preview: Forest Floor

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!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

The End of Summer

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!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

Big Things in the Works!

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!

Monday, June 8, 2009

And another!

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!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Three Days!

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.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Show Promos

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.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Tweaking the Plan

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.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Craft Revival Recap

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.)

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Fly!

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!)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Craft Revival Coupon!

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.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Show Announcement!



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.