art by mags! - urban folk art featuring recycled materials + diy design = t-shirts, mixed media, art prints, and more! New Orleans, Louisiana

blogbymags! portrait of the artist as a craftivist...

Catching Up

First, as I've mentioned elsewhere, the Bayou Boogaloo rocked! Thanks to everyone who stopped by, said hello, and made copious purchases from me that day. We had nearly perfect weather and thousands came out to enjoy the bayou, the music, the excellent food (Squeal BBQ won my pick of the day with their pulled pork over roasted cheesy corn grits for only $5!), all the art and crafts, and a beautiful late spring day. (That's my booth at the Boogaloo, to the left - but you can see all my pics from that day on my Flickr page.)

The New Orleans Craft Mafia got noticed in a big way by the fashion editor of the Times-Picayune, who published a nola.com article the next day which also eventually made it into the print version of the T-P a few days later. NewOrleans.com also noticed us and published several pics in their online galleries.

With the Bayou Boogaloo having passed, I am now in the long summer stretch of no outdoor markets. It doesn't mean I won't be out and about some over the summer, but if I do a market or show, it will be indoors. It's just too darn hot and doing the outdoor markets in this heat and humidity takes too much of a toll on my health. So I will largely be focusing on making new work and selling it on my Etsy shop - so why don't you bookmark that and check back in regularly to see what new stuff I've got for sale?

I do still have some of my 70119 t's left after the Boogaloo, though I am sold out in size large. And I have just posted some of my "ride" bicycle prints and canvases that I have in stock (the first two sold within a week of my posting them!). This week I will be working on a new series of stencil prints and/or paintings, but I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag yet about their theme until I see how it's going to work out. But I think it'll be a fun and popular series, with endless potential.

Oh, and I'd be remiss not to mention the Craft Mafia's big 4-year anniversary party on June 18th that we're working on with our friends at Antigravity Magazine and Twisted Hair Salon. Click to enlarge the flier for the event (at right) in order to read all about it. I'll be posting much more about this soon, as soon as we've got more of the details worked out. But it's going to be a blast, so pencil it in on your calendars now!

permalink posted Sunday, May 31, 2009 0 comments |

I Love Mid-City!

After Katrina, when I was displaced in shock in Louisville, KY, one of the ways I tried to cope with my new-found reality was by making t-shirt designs. Not only was it a way to try to make some money, as I was largely unemployed and in this new city where I didn't have the outlet to sell the things I make like I did back home, but I was also really searching for a way to feel connected to the plight of my community, of those who were back in NOLA already or who never left. I also figured there were plenty of displaced folks like me feeling exactly the same way. I wanted to make things that would inspire and buoy the spirits of New Orleanians no matter where they were, to give them something fun and stylish to wear to proclaim their pride and determination to return and rebuild. (We were, after all, taking a beating in the press, if you'll remember.)

One of those designs ended up being my "70119" sacred heart design, a simple stencil line drawing of a sacred heart with a tattoo-style sash across it with the numbers 70119 in it - my zipcode. My friends from Mid-City, many of whom were back and struggling with the ruins of their homes and lives, had said, "why don't you make some kind of Mid-City shirt?" since other parts of town were getting a lot more media interest and press for being hard-hit, even though Mid-City was one of the hardest hits areas of town. My love for Mid-City is and has been long and deep; I've lived in the neighborhood since about 1993 or '94. My original idea incorporated the word "Mid-City" and a fleur de lis, too, but that ended up being way too much going on - so the final design was simplified to just the zipcode, 70119.

At the time, I didn't really have the means to sell shirts that I handmade via spray paint stencil except on my few visits down to New Orleans, so I started putting the designs up on Cafe Press to make them accessible to everyone everywhere. My original idea was to do a series of ALL of the New Orleans zip codes, so that folks in each neighborhood could express their pride. But after posting a number of them online and finding that only a few of them sold, I decided to just stick with the 70119 and to make a more general NOLA version. Hence, my "NOLA" sacred heart design, which I have continued to print over the years due to its popularity.

In recent years, I've started migrating all my stencil designs onto silkscreens so I can print them nicer and with eco-friendly water-based inks, in my effort to go greener. (Also, the silkscreen ink lasts a lot longer than spray paint on fabric.) I did the NOLA heart design a while back and print it periodically, but hadn't ever gotten around to making a screen for the 70119 design, despite many requests over the years.

So here it is, finally, just in time for the Bayou Boogaloo this weekend, the free music fest that happens in my beloved Mid-City on the banks of Bayou St. John. It seemed a fitting time to print the design, and I hope folks in the 'hood will still have interest in proclaiming their love of the 70119!

Hit me up or come by the Boogaloo early to get yours. I've got a very limited supply of these, and I hope they'll go fast! (If you somehow miss out, I'll probably be taking orders after the weekend for another short run, so just jot me an email.)

permalink posted Thursday, May 21, 2009 0 comments |

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