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Vacation!

Yep, it's about that time... the time of year I close up shop for a few weeks and head north to the sandy-dune forest in Michigan known as The Land, to unplug and relearn how to be present, and hopefully recharge for another year of living in this crazy world that we do. (It looks like this:)


I am once again - for the 13th year now - working on the production crew that puts the festival together, my 12th in the One World Media area where we produce the annual film festival associated with the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. (We also assist workshop presenters with their media needs.) This year I again co-curated the film fest with my friend and longtime film crew member Eunice Charlton-Trujillo. So I will now switch gears from all-art-and-craft-all-the-time to all-film-all-the-time.

It's a funny thing, technology, in the middle of the woods, where much of everything else is accomplished in decidedly old-school non-technological ways. And it's not easy to pull off. But we do it, year after year. Meanwhile, though we do have electricity and running water in the form of outdoor showers (no flush toilets, only port-o-lets), we don't have cell phone coverage or internet access... which, I must say, I rather enjoy. It's a nuisance in small ways, in that if you have a business or urgent family matters or anything really that absolutely needs checking on in the time you are there, it can be very challenging finding the time in your daily work schedule to schlep out to your car (if you have one - many folks fly) and drive into the nearest town (usually about a half hour away) to find some wifi or cell coverage. But if you have the luxury of not having anything urgent to check in on - or can somehow structure your life such that you don't for a few weeks - it's really quite nice to not be hooked up to the information superhighway 24/7 for a few weeks. To remember what that feels like - remember what it was like before the internet and cell phones? (I guess some of you reading this probably do not!)

Well, anyways... all of this is to say I will be not present here in cyberspace or on the cell airwaves until mid-August. I'll be leaving the land on the 12th but won't be home and have my internet life back up and running probably until the 17th. So til then, enjoy the dog days of summer (hopefully many of you are also going or are already on vacation!) and we'll reconnect when I get back. Bye!

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel!

OK, I admit it. Like the vast majority of the lesbian nation - as well as a fair share of the rest of the world - I am in love with Rachel Maddow. Not only is she a hot, sexy, butch-of-center flaming queer, but she's also super smart, word-savvy, and one of the most progressive voices in the mainstream media. And those dork glasses - god, does she know how to work the sexy-dork look!

A while back I started thinking about what I wanted to take on as a new project, now that the Obama stuff has run its course and, well, there are only so many record-clocks that one can make/sell. I've been feeling this past year or so since I've been back in New Orleans, that I want to start doing more "art" as well as "craft," and want to try to take the stenciling thing to the next level. When I did the dog stencil clock, I had fun doing multi-layered stenciling. It's not easy, but I like the challenge and love the aesthetic of how it turns out. So I started thinking about what I'd like to do. A lot of poster/print artists do pop-culture portraits, but I didn't want to just do the same thing everyone else is doing. I started thinking, what would I want on my own walls? Who are the pop-culture personalities that I admire, that aren't already being done a million times over?

My original idea was to do lesbian icons - or dykons, a term that has apparently already been used in the queer press liberally - but I might not narrow it to specifically lesbians. I might limit it to women, however. I'm not really sure. I have a long list that I brainstormed when I first thought of the idea, but Rachel Maddow was near the top and just felt like the right place to start. I had a bunch of 12x12 inch canvases sitting around unused, so it seemed a good size to work from. So the initial stencil was meant for the small square canvas, as seen in the photo above.

However, once I started printing, I decided to experiment with it on a larger sheet of paper, to see how that would look. And I really like the results. The paper prints are 14x17 inches on acid-free bristol board, and are completely spray painted, including the background color. I'm still playing around with color combinations, and so far have only printed three paper versions to completion. But I'll hopefully get around to a few more this next week before I head out on vacation.

So. If you think you might like any of these prints or paintings that are up in my Etsy shop, please scoop them up now and give me enough time to mail them to you! I leave on the 25th early, so my last day for shipping is the 24th. Or if you are local, I can deliver or you can pick up. I'm still scrambling for the funds to make the trip up, so you'd be helping me out bigtime AND you'd get a one-of-a-kind piece of stencil art!

Long Live Rachel!

New Mixed Media, Clocks and More!

Well summertime seems to be the time to be creative, what with having more time on my hands since there's no markets to do in this heat. So I've been busy working on a bunch of different projects, one of which was to come up with some new mixed media pieces. I did a bunch of these a year or two ago and they went over pretty well... and I've had lots of requests for more. So I've been an epoxying fool, so far finishing four new ones that are up for sale in my Etsy shop (plus a commission, which I will post pics of later once the recipients have seen it). Lemme know what you think!

There's also a bunch of new clocks in the Etsy shop, too. Plus I've recently started offering them wholesale and on consignment to local shops. So far I've got some in Tulane's In Exchange fair trade shop, and also over at Storyville, who just moved into their new location at 3029 Magazine Street yesterday. I've had a few other queries, as well, so as I get them in new shops, I'll let you know. (If you know of any local shops who might be interested, or wholesale inquiries from any location, let me know.)

Along this train of thought, I must bid a fond farewell to the Why Louisville Store in Louisville, Kentucky, who have been carrying my "Home" Fleur de Lis tshirt for years now. They're making way for new designs and discontinuing a few of the older ones, and mine is one of the latter. Hopefully in the fall when I'm back from vacation I will be able to do another run of the "Home" shirts and get them up for sale; hang tight til then if you are in need of one. And much thanks to Will and the gang at Why Louisville for supporting me all these years. Check 'em out on Bardstown Road if you're in Louisville.

That's about all I've got going on at the minute. Hope y'all are staying cool in this horrid summer heat!



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