So much stuff!

Everything seems to be going so fast those past couple of days, and at the same time, the beginning of the week seem like a lifetime ago. I can't remember when i last wrote in this blog, though I'm sure it wasn't that long ago. Between facebook and flickr it feels sort of strange to report about everything that's going on again, but I think that it'll clear my head a bit so I'll try and write some of it.

It seem that all this effort to go out more, socialize and interact with people is starting to pay off, also, it really helps me be more friendly and conduct my online work interaction better. It's also at least in part thanks ot Bob, the guy who's the teacher at the Sale's class Ned and I are taking.

So, there is a lot of exciting news!

First of all, I'm going to teach a class in etsy next month, it's going to be a demonstration of drawing on cups and will be broadcast in their chat, so people all around the world can follow! the coolest thing is how once thing led to another with this - I did an order for the company who makes the paints I'm using then the nice woman from the paint company asked me about the class and of course I agreed. It's going to be wonderful! though I'm just going ot not think about it so I don't get too stressed.


Second, Ned and I just had a really great meeting at a huge advertising agency today, with the guy who's the head of their print department, I don't know if it'll lead ot anything (though if id does that would be the best thing in the world) but it was really great to sit in am eeting and feel like I have my shit together.

Third, Ned and I are shooting some of the fashion week backstage shows - we did one on Thursday and another one tomorrow, I've had an excellent time on the first and got massive amount of photos that I like. Tomorrow we are shooting in the Briant park tents, I'm a little nervous, hoping we will not have problems with getting in, and hoping to have an amazing time, and take a lot of photos.

Also, I just got a new lens and made banana bread today (first attempt at real baking in oh, maybe 6 years...)

Pattern

Every night the soul shutter to a million pieces
In the morning we weave back the pattern
over and over again.

Winter Weather

New louchelust movie, i finished it tonight, it's cool to have this site updated after probably a year of not touching it.

PowerHouse

We are taking Ned's portfolio to be reviewed by "powerhouse" publisher tomorrow.

We've been editing photos and making choices all week, now almost everything is done (we still need to make a couple of CDs)

We've talked a lot this week about what we want, about our accomplishments from the past year, about the future.

At first it felt like we are coming to this meeting very empty handed, being that Ned hasn't done a lot of commercial photography in the past few years, then thinking about the amount of views we had on our websites, the involvement in different web based project and other things, we started to feel better about the whole thing.

It was nice to understand that basically, we were doing everything right, building a reputation, reaching out to the public, and sharpening our skills, now all we need to do is find a way to connect with some art buyers and learn to make money.

Also, this made me realize something really important about my own art. I really couldn't care less of what happened to it after I'm done making them.

I want to sell art so I can go on making art and not have to work in an office or something, I also love selling art cause it makes me feel appreciated and loved. However, I don't care at all if I sell it to a magazine to use as illustrations, or find an art gallery that show and sell it to collectors, or publish it in a book that's sold in a bookstore or whatever.
Really, if I could find some eccentric patron who would buy all my paintings cause he want to use them as toilet paper I couldn't be happier.

Vespine gallery show

So a few weeks ago Ned gets this phone call from an art gallery in Chicago, it turn out that they were looking for me for a few weeks, I usually don't answer my phone and for some reason I didn't get any of their e-mails. They wanted to give me an art show in their gallery.

This is not only my own personal dream (and art show without having to run after the gallery, but them running after me) but probably the dream every artist I know.

I couldn't bring myself to call them, but I e-mailed, Ned did, he told them I'll e-mail them and so I did.

So then, I never heard back, which made me a bit sad, but I sort of moved on. Then about 2 weeks later, they called Ned's phone again. It turned out that for some reason, again, I didn't get their e-mail. They needed the artist statement, and bio and know when I'm sending the pieces and so on.

Again, I couldn't bring myself to call, and Ned did. He's been doing all the communication for me, even e-mails, that I'm usually not so anxious about. He consulted a gallery owner that we know about prices and arrangement and what to ask and do.

It turned out that this is the only show in the year in which participant artist don't have to pay for the space. the gallery is giving me one of the most amazing gifts and opportunity I could ever wish for. Everyone around me who Ned have told to about this are so happy and helpful and wonderful about this.

Yet, I feel so scared and anxious and like I'm messing up. I've been creating a second body of work for this show, about 30 drawings in less then a week. I've written a nice enough artist statement, later improved by Ned, a gallery owner \ friend and Ned's dad. And yet I feel like I haven't done a thing and like I keep messing up.

Everything is so good, I just paralyzed with fear waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The show is going to be at the Vespine Gallery in Chicago on November 15. We are already planning a motorcycle trip to come to the opening!

This week has been such a crazy emotional roller coaster.

I just want to sleep (and for all my painting to sell in the show of course...)

Project Renewal

I was reading some tread on the etsy forum today where people recommended different things to jump start sells and told what they did to make their store work better. One of the things many people mentioned how renewing and listing often helps a lot! I usually list something every day or two, but I'm going to try and do better now.

I've decided to check this theory by spending a 1$ each day on renewing and listing, meaning, about 5 items either new or renewed per day. I'm going to try two things. In the first week of the experiment, I'm going to list or renew 5 items in different hours of the day, while at the second week of renewing, I'm going to renew all of them at once.

I'm going to put in some numbers in my blog everyday to see if this works in any way to make my sells get a little better.

So here's today's numbers:

Items renewed:
past present future - a set of 3 drawings for 40$
opossum sewing kit - 20$
a cups set of tarot cards - 40$
a fox - 25$

New items:
a painting called strange summer, which I did today at a coffee shop while ned was at the gym escaping the heat of the apartment - 15$

Number of hearts - 1042

Electricity

Back to NY after a mote amazing trip ever - eventually we made it to 2 weeks of motorcycling, hoteling, site seeing and photographing. You can read about it more here.

So eventually, back at home, trying to get myself into work pace again and failing, I did manage to get to Illustrator Friday today, the topic was "electricity" and I made those 2 small drawings for it, the reference is a book from the 70's that I found on those outdoor carts on Strand for 50 cents.

I really like how box like those kitchen appliences look on the outside and how intricate and complicated they look on the inside.

What does one do in a day of no crafting?

I didn't make anything today, usually I don't make stuff in a day before a shoot. Ned's shooting a beautiful model tomorrow and we are trying to get over the mass in the studio and turn it from an artist studio, a very messy place indeed, to a photography studio, which is basically a lot of free space. So what did I do today?


Well, Ned when into the city for a meeting and I came as well, we agreed to meet back at coffee shop in an hour and a half. I'm almost out of cool fabrics for the lining of the tarot decks, so I walked to PurlSoHo to get some new ones. The store was really crowded and it's tiny, but found some good stuff. It was cool to listen to all the conversation and how people are dealing with crafting problems and what they are making.



It was very cold and i was getting tired walking out, so I stopped in some tea shop and had some tea. I didn't have my MP3 players and for the first time in a while I got to sit on my own and listen to people's conversation that were very strange, There was 2 women in some meeting on one side, one of them were a voice coach or an English teacher and this was their first class, she made the other girl read out a poem lout loud in the middle of the cafe and they went over the difficult words.

On the other side, a girl was telling her friend about her trip to Pushkar, India. one of them watched a TV show about Pushkar and they were comparing notes and talking about guys.

While I was having tea and listening to conversations, I was finishing a painting I was working on for a while.



We went back home and Ned fell asleep while I was trying to clear the mess in the apartment so that we can shoot tomorrow. After a while I stopped, we didn't do the image research we usually do before shoots and I didn't know if Ned's going to wake up in time to do it, so I made one myself, after an hour of finding and downloading pictures, I went back to trying to clear the mess.

Ned woke up and we went out for a late late dinner in Kellogg's coming out, we saw the most beautiful snow falling. It looked like tiny shards of glass or the small tinsels in a snow glob, all tiny and shiny. It was very cold and the snow was staying on the ground, all dry and stiff, like powdered sugar.



In Kellogg's it was warm and crowded, and we had some sandwiches and talked over the photos I downloaded before, thinking about different ideas for tomorrow.

Stab stitching tutorial

This is a tutorial for my currently favorite book making method. A Japanese style stab stitching cook, it's perfect for making small notebooks, sketchbooks and albums, as well as bigger hard cover books (though I personally haven't tried those.

The benefits of stab stitching books are - since all the pages are stitched together, there are no signatures and so you can bind any number of pages together. Also, there is no glue involve which make this craft a lot less messy (though you won't be able to judge that by how the studio looks right now.


Materials
A rubber ballet or a hammer, paper cut to size, I used about 25 pages for this one, nice paper for the cover and pack cover, also cut to the same size at the pages inside, an awl, a ruler, craft knife, pencil, floss, needle, 2 clips.

Step 1. Attach all the pages together using the clips, put the clips in about a third from the top, leave at least 1"-2" clear to work on.
Step 2. with the ruler and the pencil, mark a straight line on the top part of the book (where the stitching will go). Mark 5 points in equal intervals.


Step 3. Using the awl and mallet, puncture 5 holes where you made the marking. make sure the awl made it all the way through all layers of paper and that the holes are nice and even. If you down have an awl, this can also be done with a nail.

Step 4. make a knot at the end of your floss and thread it through a needle. Start by passing the needle through the center hole from the back of the book to the front, then loop around the top part of the book and insert the needle again through the same hole.

Step 5. Then, pass the needle through the hole to the right of the center hole, and loop around the top part again. turn the book to the back part and move to the next hole to the right (the last one) and loop around it as well. Loop around the side of the book and insert the needle through the first hole to the right again. Then stiched back to the center.
Step 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to the left side of the book, then tie a knot at the end and trim the floss.

Ta-Da! the book is done, you can decorate it with rubber stamps, bits of paper, beads, drawings or whatever you like. Or, if you are too lazy, you can hop on to my store and buy one. Writing the instruction is honestly more complicated then actually making one, there are very few options to where the needle can go and it's really really easy to make.

More book binding information
Book binding glossary
The how to make books book
Japanese book binding
Center of book art
The Arm - a wonderful gallery and letter press shop, that offer classes and is just a great place to visit.

Weekly Summery

Sales This week: 11 (!)

Hearts: 358

Treasuries: Curated 2 (the art of war and Original sin)

Main source of inspiration: A fabric shopping spree in PurlSoho and a paper shopping spree in NY central art supply gave me a beautiful new thoughts about colors.

Best thing to eat: Not an amazing food week, but I just had some amazing chocolate.

Shopping: Oh my god! so many cool things were bought this week - about 20$ in Purl for 2 pieces of linen and 4 pieces of cotton, then about 10% in dickblick for 3 sheets of paper, and then about 30$ for 11 sheets of paper, all for the back of tarot cards. Expensive - but so beautiful!

Greatest achievement: 11 Sales! the most I've had it a week so far.

Disappointments: Still not brave enough to list any pine art pieces.

OK, so lets see how I did with this weeks goals...

1.List something each and every day I think that aside of one day, I have indeed list something everyday. On top of that I'm learning to use the Etsy listing exel document so I'll be able to follow my listings better.

2. And make a fox! - Nop! I was too busy making Tarot cards.

3. finish the cups set production and list it, and make at least one tarot deck of the major arcana this week - I made much more then that! one of my nicest buyers wrote about "the cups" deck in a collectors forum which got some cool people seeing them (and buying them!) I made 8 of them this week - and sold 6 of the ones I made.

4. get one treasury, at least, and be in one (hopefully) - I got 2 treasuries, but were not featured in any - sadly.

5. list a fine art item - Nop, I'm still not brave enough for that. I'm going to try that next week.

6. write a store review about someone else's store - Didn't do that either.

7. see the Irving Pen exhibition in the Morgan library and also the Horst exhibition in the Forbes gallery - And no exhibitions!

I guess I didn't do so well on the tasks for this week, however, it doesn't matter so much cause I was really busy making tarot deck and taking care of orders. I'm so happy and excited about people's reaction to the new cards and all the sales. I just hope it keeps going like that.

So, most of the goals move to next week and this is what I plan to do:

1. There were already 14 sales this month, I'm very happy about that. My target was 20 sales this month, so I hope to have to revise that, If I can make those 6 sales this week, I'll be happy.

2. Get my hands on one more treasury at least and if possible, be in one.

3. I got a very nice e-mail from the woman who wrote the Etsy article in Ynet. I want to answer it and write her about my favorite Etsy store.

4. List a fine art piece.

5. Odin the wolf sold, so I want to make another wolf. And possible another fox.

6. Make another cups deck and another major deck.

7. I want to write a blog entry \ article about my experience in Tarot and the history of them in my life. Possibly the first of a series of articles about my personal view of Tarot card. This would be a perpetration to a fuller instruction manual I intend to make about cards.

8. Go see those exhibitions!

Good night!

Sales today: 3
Items posted: 3
packages send out: 1
Main source of inspiration: A fabric shopping spree at PurlSoho made me think about colors.
Best thing to eat: jambon de bayon Sandwich at Blackbird Parlor and Baklava for dessert.
Listening to: The deathgate cycle audio book.

We were sick all week, however, during the night I feel better and then - I work! and so tonight, Ned took photos of a cups Tarot deck I finished last night. And I manage to make another 2. It was a very good night.

The cool thing was this - I listed the deck, then, I posted a photo in flickr, then I opened the new Exel work file I downloaded from the Etsy site to try and keep better track on thing and, well tried to figure it out since I've never worked with it before (I'm still not sure it's working...) and then I went back to my etsy page to check the view - and the deck was gone! it was already sold!

It's the best feeling in the world.

Finally...

Tarot cards - cups, originally uploaded by lilly1975.

Finally, they are done, photographed and listed in the store! A new series of 14 cards, the cups from the minor arcana decks. I'm really proud of myself for finishing those, the illustrations turned out really elaborate and I like them very much.

The minor arcana deck is a set of 56 cards, an old version of the today known playing cards. each suite is made of 14 cards (unlike playing cards that have 13 in each suite). 10 of those are number cards, starting at Ace and finishing at 10, and then 4 royal family cards. usually, those are "page", "knight", "queen" and "king. Though in my version of it, It's "page", "knight", "princess" and "queen.

Each of the suite have an object that represent a certain element and a facet of life or a type of energy. In this case, cup represent the element of water and the energy of love and emotions.

I chose to use the same model who's also a friend for this suite. By working with the same person, I hoped to express how we move through all type of emotional related situation through life and how different types of love and the expression of it change as we change.

The cards are hand painted and come in a nice handmade bag with a short set of instructions.

Check it out!

Thursday

Sales today: 1
Items posted: 1
packages send out: 1
Main source of inspiration: a shopping mistake
Best thing to eat: Eggs Benedict in Pastis (it was so decadent, but so worth it...)

I just realized that for the past week or so I've been managing 2 blogs that are basically the same, both were made to share the experiences I have through running the Etsy store, one on we-love-etsy and one on indipublic and that on top of the not very used personal blog Homeworld and a couple of website and a flickr account.

It felt really strange to have to split the store blog info into 2, so I decided that what I need is yet another blog to have all that info in (plus I really hate NING's graphics - it's too overpowering and sell I say - ugly).

So here it is, in all it's glory - new blog weepee!

And without farther a due, today's Etsy news:

A Sad Story of Shopping and Returning
One of the things that I really like about the store is that it pushes me to do stuff that's really hard for me, like being assertive. So this is what happened - a while ago I went to Staplers and got 3 packs of cover stock paper in green, gray and cream, I thought I'd use them for pages in books I made, but they were too heavy and so they were left aside. Then, when I started prining out the Tarot cards I remembered them and the cream was just perfect for this.
So, eventually, the paper was over, after about 15 tarot decks and I needed new one. I went to the store and got some new one, but, coming home, it turned out that the different brand doesn't work well at all with the printer and I can't use it.

If this was just for a personal project I would toss the paper away and forget about the whole thing, however, because this was for the store, I felt more responsible and assertive and me and Ned went into the city today, and though the package was open, they were still able to refund the money.

This story is boring, but it has 2 important morals - the first is that it's good to be assertive, cause I feel much better about myself after I returned the paper. The second is that necessity is the mother of invention, because, having no cream paper, I tried the gray and it came out really really great.



A Happy Story About a Weasel

We both woke up early and in a really bad mood this morning. We didn't feel like eating anywhere in the area and eventually took the train to Ned's old neighborhood just to have breakfast in a really fancy place he loved going to when he was living there. It was a really nice breakfast. On the way back I asked "do you think something sold in the store?" and he said "yes" and then I asked "what" and he said "Everything!" and I said "I wish the weasel would sell, it's really cute and it makes me sad when animals that I make don't sale.

I got home and what do I see?! It did sell! that was really cool. I send the package out right away.

Also, a tutorial I made in the morning about making weasels got published on Cut Out + Keep.