One of those Huuuu... Haaaa.... stories

One of my favorite things about selling stuff online (aside of being able to work my own hours and being able to do it in my underwear) is that in some cases I get to know where my art goes and the story behind the decision of someone to buy it.

So a couple of days ago I got an order for a bird tea pot as a wedding gift, which I'm always excited about, weddings are such a big deal, I always think of how Ned's mom still hold on to most of her wedding gifts and every now and then when I compliment her on an especially nice table cloths or plates, she often say "we got this for our wedding from...." She remembered all those beautiful pieces and who gave them! So the idea of someone having a cup of tea 50 years from now and saying "I got this for our wedding from..." makes me really happy.

I wanted to start working on the tea pot right away, but yesterday I made cards, then with the lack of spray adhesive I just couldn't bring myself to start something new and end up playing video games for 2 hours then going to sleep.

This morning I got an e-mail from the buyer telling me this amazing story:

The wedding is going to take place outdoors and the ceremony is going to happened under a mulberry tree. So if I can, instead of what she originally wanted, make the birds sit in a mulberry tree! I'm so glad I was lazy yesterday! and so today I spend a few hours working on this mulberry and birds tea pot. how cool is that?!

Illustration Friday - Subtract

This is an illustration Friday piece the word of the week was "subtract". I wanted to create a paper cut for it, and use a subtracting technique instead of an additive one, like adding paint to paper.

This is also an artistic response to this beautiful and moving blog Entry about love and fear, weakness and strength.

Celebrate

A couple of days ago, Ned and I shot a model, she was telling us about making a beautiful Valentine's for her boyfriend, it was made in the shape of hands and when you open the card, there's a pop up human heart. Then she dumped him 3 days before Valentine's, it just wasn't working for her.

I don't like Valentine's, it seem a stupid tradition of mostly shopping and feeling obliged to show emotions in a very artificial way. I much rather celebrate my love ot Ned every day then dedicate just one day out of the year to it.

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Saying that, we did have a super romantic Valentine's - we weren't really planning on celebrating, but somehow, we ended up getting drunk having super passionate sex on the photo shoot backdrop, while taking pictures, catching a couple of rats who took over the kitchen (which doesn't sound like a romantic thing, buy somehow it was) making art, and getting new matching tattoos (of owls!)

Book Making Day

A few months ago in preparing to a truck show at Ned's mom's house, I made 8 books in 2 days! It went well and they came out beautiful, 6 of them actually sold, however, I think I lost my taste for it after that, it was just a bit too much. However, today, I was back to it and it was very rewarding to discover that I was still able to make them and didn't even need a reminder of how to do it.

The reason for the return to book binding was this custom order:



I suggested this to a really nice girl who was looking for a gift for her boyfriend for when she's away on a trip to NY. I remembered reading in a a Chuck Palahniuk book about an old sailors wife's tradition of writing a diary in their husband's absence so that upon his return, he'll know what went on. I made her 2 matching diaries so they can both write their thoughts and experience while they are apart.

The cover shows a portrait of them and a quote from an EE Cummings poem.

Since I was already making books, I also made one for the store, it's a beautiful Art Nouveau inspired book with a fancy lady on the cover.