the blogger in me

as seen in the Color Factory shop, an experience I wrote about here

On Sunday this blog turned 18. Leading up to October 2005 (a year that included marriage, a cross-country move, and the start of grad school), I'd been manually updating my website at the time with some regularity, but sadly, I didn't think then to archive that material in any way (it may be saved somewhere but that was several laptops ago). It was the earlyish, more ephemeral days of the world wide web. Here are my top 18 posts of all time:

1. pay for it: The first time my family encountered lice, not long after the Hamilton craze began, I wrote a parody of Wait For It. It is my most-viewed blog post of all time.

2. & 3. Up next, two posts about the making of my podcast, here and here. I wonder how much of the information in the second post is already obsolete? I guess I'll find out if and when I revive the podcast for season 2!

4. Fresh from the Makery: Eli's Bedtime, in which I wrote about the felt bedtime chart I made for my then ~3yo son. I still have it although I've since repurposed the stretcher bars (the chart is rolled up and stored in my studio).

5. book deal dreams, in which I recap the first of two years of "unemployment-by-choice" between August 2017 to September 2019. Still no book deal.

6. Another "fresh from the Makery" post, this one about the Mothers Cookies inspired felt ornaments I made.

7. Always surprised to see how many views this Makery project has: recycled denim coffee cozy.

8. This was a fun project: embroidered summer constellation flashcards. Want to make some of your own? Click on and save/download the images (4 total) at the end of this post (it may take some trial and error to print them correctly front and back so apologies in advance that I can't help you there).

9. I wouldn't be the first one to liken running an Etsy shop circa early 2010s to having your own personal sweat shop but here I bemoan the downsides of the paper punches I used in a lot of my wedding invitation designs at the time, with a totally unrelated Britney reference thrown in for good measure.

10. On a similar note, in this popular (relatively speaking) post I describe the steep learning curve that was the Yudu (I still have it although I haven't used it in years). So insane to look back at those pictures and recall that I started my micro-biz in a 2-bedroom apartment I shared with my husband, toddler son, and two cats.

11. The felt Android phone cozy (version 2.0)!

12. Tie-dye crayons, another project from the Makery. This project is such an easy crowd-pleaser and a great way to use up all those little crayon pieces.

13. Faux swirl lollipops using pipe cleaners for one of the fussier invitation designs I dreamed up during my Etsy days. I mocked up this design for my son's 3rd birthday party.

14. If I ever go back to school to get my PhD my dissertation will be about The Last Unicorn. This post is really just a plot synopsis but the older I get the more I think I understand why I thought about that movie so often while working on my MFA thesis. It's on a long list of possible blog topics I keep so perhaps I'll write more about it here one day (and yes, another Britney reference in that title).

15. That time I opted to quit after years of grit and spent a lot less time on my Etsy shop/micro-biz in favor of a "real job." 

16. During my Etsy years I trained for and ran the Oakland marathon and as part of my fundraising efforts I raffled off various items that were donated to me by fellow, mostly local, Etsy shops. Why the item I raffled off on the 9th of 12 days is my 16th most viewed post is beyond me but here it is.

17. I never did sell or get these items back from the store I'd sent them to on consignment, the first and last time I tried out that arrangement.

18. Finally, not unlike #16, a random post from the pandemic diaries: week 12, during which we broke quarantine to go hang out in the desert.

Now for those constellation flashcards I promised you - enjoy!

pandemic diaries: weeks 28-31

So, yeeeeaaaaaahhh, I'm kinda behind. To recap, as briefly as possible, here are the highlights of the past four weeks:

Air quality continued to be poor during much of the past four weeks but it's been pretty decent the past week or so, so it's like it never happened! Just like the months of insane fireworks around here. How effortlessly we forget and move on once they end. Sigh.

Neighborhood cat who usually ignores us graced us with their attention on a recent morning walk.

Love cats and art as much as I do? Watch this short film made in 1983 about the history of cats in art at the Met (I even learned something new!). "The Favorite Cat" is the cat on my address book, which I bought at the Met gift shop in 2001.

7yo mesmerized by AI.

Jenny O'Dell is working on a new book that I think will fit nicely in my Artists in Offices bibliography. I finished How To Do Nothing some time ago, but I keep thinking about it, especially when I watched The Social Dilemma recently and then saw the AI show at the recently reopened de Young Museum. More thoughts on all three to follow.

12yo made this for me for my birthday.

I have a new website! I haven't figured out what to do with it just yet, but I will. Soon! If you have ideas, leave them in the comments.

Vegan pepperoni! Vegan calamari!

Speaking of birthday, yes, I've joined the pandemic birthday club, the result of which was not too different from non-pandemic birthday celebrations. I enjoyed a couple of hours in the studio, a solo walk, and a vegan birthday spread from Butcher's Son and Love at First Bite, both in Berkeley.

It was a good mail day when this arrived. From my friend Jesse Kelsey, aka Neat Beats, who provided the intro/outro music for my podcast, his first album! So impressed (pandemic, new job, new house, two kids) and I daresay a little proud. You can listen to the album for free, here.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have landed a somewhat pandemic-proof job right before the pandemic. Even so, after a decade of trial and error (mostly error), I feel this very real possibility always lingering at the edges of my daily juggling act. I hope this conversation about the essential nature of childcare for working parents continues after the pandemic is over.

Lots of businesses in Oakland (and around the country) have closed permanently since the pandemic unfolded last spring. I was really sad to learn of the MADE's fate. Letting go of their space (where we celebrated my son's 9th birthday) is a done deal, but you can donate (here or here) to help them with storage and moving forward in a pandemic/post-pandemic world.

The children are still doing distance learning full-time, at home. It's a weird time, wrapping up week 10 of the school year, as we simultaneously settle into a somewhat sustainable routine (we could do this forever!) that is also somehow mildly torturous. And the very people who keep reminding parents that this is an unprecedented crisis situation turn around and dismiss, whether intentionally or not, how incredibly challenging this has been and continues to be for kids, parents, families, relationships, etc. I can feel deep gratitude for jobs we can do from home, space and technology for school work to happen, and our continued health while also refusing to sugar-coat how far from ideal distance learning has been and continues to be. 

On a lighter note (unless we're talking about calories, that is) the pandemic baking continues. Pictured above is vegan pumpkin pecan pie bread from Rabbit & Wolves, one of my newer go-tos for vegan recipes. 

At the Great Peter Pumpkin Patch in Petaluma earlier this week.

How are you celebrating Halloween this year? So far, we've done all the usual stuff: decorate the house and front yard, hit up a local pumpkin patch, buy costumes, throw out the old candy to make room for the new, etc. After trying all week, I finally snagged tickets for Boo at the Zoo for Halloween day. But no trick or treating for us this year (I'm thinking of doing something a little like an Easter egg hunt). 

Finally, if you live in California, please vote yes on Proposition 15. It's a flimsy bandaid for the gaping wound created by Prop 13 over 40 years ago. Our public education system needs all the support it can get as we collectively recover from the mess we find ourselves in.

Otherwise, we're binge-watching Killing Eve season 3 and I'm loving how over the top this season is. Highly recommended for your viewing pleasure.

5 reasons you should read Felicia Day's memoir

In August 2015, about seven months into my last day job, already miserable juggling unfulfilling full-time work, two young kids, and virtually no time for creativity of any kind (but nevertheless trying desperately to squeeze in "art" projects like this one and this one and this one), after dropping off my kids at preschool and summer camp, I heard Felicia Day on my local public radio station talking about her new memoir, You're Never Weird On The Internet (Almost). Despite a couple of decades of prodding by my husband (who, at some point a few years ago, gave up) I've never been one for video games (aside from Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, and most recently, Just Dance) but something about what Day said really stuck with me. I can't recall now the specific words that resonated with me then, but I immediately added her book to my Amazon wishlist and when a gift card coincided with the book being released in paperback, I bought it. Last night I finished reading it (it was a quick read but took me a few months to get around to starting it) and here are five reasons why you, creative person, should read it, whether you're into gaming or not.

For the record, I like reading "real" books AND e-books on my Kindle.

1. The mental health benefits of diversifying your creative portfolio.

After Day moves to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, she counterweights the frustration of acting classes and auditions with what eventually turns into a World of Warcraft obsession. But before she spends twelve hours a day playing the game, she writes about how, in addition to bonding with her brother, "a part of Hollywood-defeated Felicia Day was 'fixed' by my double life as a tiny little penis-haired gnome." This is, I suspect, how many artists feel about their day jobs (and vice versa). I am not one of them. But this is how I feel about alternating between art-making (and the discouragement of serial rejection), and writing my screenplay (it can't be rejected until it's finished and shared - ha!). I guess this is to say it helps to not put all your creative eggs into one basket, for your sanity, if nothing else.

2. Sheer obstinate grit.

About halfway through the book, Day writes about her goal to finish the pilot script for her web series The Guild by the end of that December. "What drove me to continue? Sheer obstinate grit." This is really what any creative endeavor comes down to, after all. Write those words down on an index card and pin them to your mirror, bulletin board, laptop, etc.

3. An overview of #GamerGate and parallels to our current political climate.

Especially if, like me, it wasn't on your radar quite as much as it was for folks(/women) in the world of gaming, this is an important chapter to read. There are direct links between the #GamerGate "movement" and the alt-right, of course, but even without digging into that, the parallels to what's going on in politics right now under the "leadership" of President Trump are stunning (in a bad way). Day writes, "I think the same viral effect that leads people to share a crazy Korean music video a billion times is the same kind of phenomenon that helped give rise to #GamerGate." A few pages later she continues, when #GamerGate didn't quietly go away, "the issue somehow morphed from attacking a single woman over a messed-up revenge post to a quasi-conservative movement striving for 'ethics in game journalism'...They focused a large amount of their wrath on people trying to add dialogue about feminism and diversity in gaming, condemning them as 'Social Justice Warriors.'" You could plug in almost any social issue facing our country today and the dynamics of conservative media to these sentences and it would still be spot on.

Day continues: "#GamerGate as a movement created an environment for the attacks to flourish. Hell, it ORIGINATED with them. A great quote from a video series called Folding Ideas put it best: 'The use of fear tactics, even if only by a minority, creates an environment of fear that all members enjoy the privilege of, whether they engage in them or not.'" Um, hello, Trump effect?

Finally, on the "good and bad" of the internet, she writes: "What frightened me the most about my #GamerGate experience was the possibility that this could be the future of the internet. That the utopia I thought the online world created, where people don't have to be ashamed of what they love and could connect with each other regardless of what they looked like, was really a place where people could steep themselves in their own worldview until they became willfully blind to everyone else's." It's so easy to let this happen, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, and the consequences can be devastating.

In summary, this chapter in particular was basically my #GamerGate woke moment. And it's important for creative folks to be aware since so much of what we do is shared on the internet.

4. The importance of failure, blah, blah, blah.

When, in 2014, YouTube ceased funding for the Geek & Sundry channel, Day "immediately went home and wrote down the top things [she'd] learned going from naive actress to experienced web series show runner to world-weary start-up lady with Geek & Sundry." This one is my favorite: "The more mistakes, the better the story afterwards, especially if there's a happy ending."

5. Finally, start yourself a creative support group that discusses life goals and stuff...over pancakes.

That is all.

fresh from the Makery: a little lite housekeeping

Okay, maybe this shouldn't count as a new project for the week, but I did reprint some of the Chick Flick Notes that are, once again, in my other shop. So they're kind of new.

Even though the FreshonMondays Etsy shop was started for products that come from Makery projects, regardless of materials used, it's making more sense to me lately that anything graphic design-y or involving paper should go to the RBGColor shop, "design studio and paper crafts" shop that it is, and anything involving felt or other non-paper materials will stay in the FreshonMondays shop. Basically, my scattered web presence is a big branding nightmare. So this is my effort at untangling that presence just a bit. The Chick Flick Notes are now their own category in that shop (you could say I've curated the dozens of quotes a bit...serving suggestions, if you will). I also moved over the Marie Antoinette recycled screenprint proof stationery.

So, anyway, that's that. God forbid I ever edit myself and focus on one thing! That wouldn't be any fun!

back to life...in the cloud

Fresh from my first craft fair, I wanted to share a few images and thoughts.  I've been hesitant to participate in craft fairs until now primarily because, taking custom orders exclusively online until now, inventory has always been a bit of an issue.  But I hunkered down this past week and produced enough Android phone cases and paper goodies to fill out the smallish table I was given. 

There was a lot of editing throughout this last week of preparation - I went from nearly a dozen or so items to focusing primarily on the phone cases, a few Mother's Cookies items, and a couple of other note card sets ready to sell. 

I incorporated a few tips I picked up from a number of different craft fair checklists, including the height variations in my display, the free and edible offering of actual Mother's Cookies Circus Animals, and bringing my craft with me to work on during the six hours of the fair, something that didn't really work out too well in the end.  With the presence of the Mother's Cookies goodies, both edible and easy on the waistline, I decided to go with a pastry shop inspired display, using a silver charger and a couple of different cake stands.  While I liked how these worked visually and for display purposes, they weren't that practical when visitors wanted to peruse, for example, the 65 or so different chick flick notecards I had to offer yesterday.  Additionally, the phone cases, displayed more or less flat, sort of disappeared, prompting the venue's owner and organizer to offer me a little decorative suitcase to use to sort of prop them up.  I actually had an entirely different idea for displaying these that I didn't get around to but will definitely get together for my next event in a few weeks.

I used the elements of my Etsy shop banner for my table sign and thought, how clever would it be to carry this over into my individual product displays using an actual Dymo embossed label maker?  Clever, perhaps, but again, not so practical since the signs proved a bit hard to read.  I think I'll do something similar to my sign name, only smaller, next time around.

Other thoughts...While I'm still looking forward to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire later this month, I'm just not sure the craft fair/sale is for me.  For starters, it feels too close to my experiences in retail, experiences I'm not particularly fond of reliving.  Not to be all complain-y, but it's exhausting having to stand for hours on end with little or no break and repeatedly explain and pitch your products. Much easier to put it on the Internets and let the customers come to me.  Which brings me to the conclusion that the Android phone cases, targeting a niche market as they do, perhaps just fare better online.  Very few people recognized the logo, let alone carried an Android smart phone.  The one guy who did happened to be an employee of Google.  The only phone case I sold yesterday I sold to a woman with a Blackberry.  I explained the nature of the product and offered her my card with my Etsy shop info if she'd prefer a custom order.  I felt a little guilty but she insisted and seemed pleased with her purchase so who am I to argue?

Also, initially I thought, well, it won't be too tedious.  I oughtta be able to crank out several phone cases while I sit there for six hours, understanding of course that I'd experience, with any luck, frequent interruptions to interact with customers and hopefully sell some product.  But I was discouraged from sitting and crafting and I totally get it. I'm just not sure I like it or have it in me to do it too often, let alone monthly or sometimes weekly as some of these hardcore crafters do.

On a positive note, it was a really welcome change to interact with other crafty folks and supporters. One surprising hit were the chick flick notecards, the day's biggest seller (that's not saying much but still), and quite the conversation piece.  And of course, I learned a bunch and I'm hoping the event will prove to be a useful trial run for the Maker Faire coming up.  I'm also hoping to capitalize on the slightly more, er, geeky audience sure to attend.

Rubik's Cube Giveaway!

Okay, one more thing before I head out for a bang trim and then I swear I'm going to devote the rest of the day to packing!

As a yet-to-contribute member of the 360PR MomSquad (most of their surveys and such address families with kids older than mine) I recently had the opportunity to participate in their new educational initiative, You CAN Do the Rubik's Cube.  Even though my son is too young to even attempt solving this thing, the program played on my childhood nostalgia (spending my formative years with an older brother and a bunch of male cousins in a not so great neighborhood of Reno, NV, the way I remember "solving" the cube was primarily by rearranging the stickers) so I jumped at the opportunity to get one of the kits pictured above and below.

Inside you'll find a Rubik's cube, a solution guide, as well as instructions for making your very own Rubik's Cube cake!  Throw a "block" party! Get it?

I passed my kit along to my niece and nephew but there's still one kit up for grabs and I thought, what a great opportunity for a little giveaway?  To tie the kit into the crafty nature of this blog (and nostalgic nature of this particular post), I also wanted to share an image from Neal's childhood, a mere four-hour drive away from my Reno stomping grounds at the time in the central valley of California (perhaps we crossed preschooler paths at Denio's?)  One year for Halloween, Neal's Mom made his brother Ryan a Rubik's Cube costume:

How freakin' cute is that?! (And how rad is that orange carpet, eh?)  I have a few ideas of my own as far as translating Rubik's cubey goodness into felt and thread but sadly won't have the time to make any of that happen for a couple of weeks, after the dust settles from yet another family move.  In the meantime, what crafty, cubey ideas would you like to share in an effort to win the Rubik's Cube kit up for grabs?

Post your ideas and/or links in the comments section and a winner will be selected at random on Monday, August 16th!

What's black and white and hot pink all over?

My new Android phone cozy, that's what!

Finally! I got myself a smart phone and of course it was an Android phone (the Samsung Galaxy to be exact):

And of course I had to make my phone a cozy straight away and of course I went with the "droidette" logo:

And of course it's hot pink:

Well, the droidette is hot pink, as is the lining.  And the backdrop for these images. Too much?

I swear I'm not 13.  I have had an awful lot of coffee, though. In my packing procrastination, I'm getting all sorts of other stuff done.  But this is important.  I couldn't let my brand new phone go floating around in my purse, unprotected by eco-felt, any longer.

So far I'm very pleased with my Samsung Galaxy, although to be fair I'm upgrading from a Razor so it didn't take much to impress me.  But even Neal, who's holding out until he's eligible to upgrade his now old-school G1 in another month or so, seems to like it.  In fact, he can't seem to keep his hands off it. Maybe this girly case will keep him away.

Yep, that's my baby.  Oh yeah, and there's a picture of my kid on it, too.

be mine

Fan, that is.  Just in time for Valentine's Day (you'd think I might have come up with a few projects for v-day but, no...), I've gone and created a Facebook fan page for the Makery.  Yep, another outlet for obsessing over shop stats of one kind or another.  I'm hoping having the page will motivate me to resume the project on a more regular basis.  And maybe I'll think up some sort of FB-fans-only promotion at some point.  We'll see how it works out.

So what have I been up to since showing off my handmade Christmas cards, anyway?  Mostly getting through the transition from full-time stay-at-home-mom to having part-time daycare in place, which you can read about in greater detail here, if you're into that kind of thing (the baby blog is called "baby lust," which is ironic because I mostly use it to complain about how difficult motherhood is).  Maintaining my two Etsy shops (my life involves two materials lately, paper and felt) keeps me busy enough during the three days each week I now have to myself.  I'm not exactly in line to be Etsy's next featured seller or anything but I'm very happy for the increase in business the past few months.  So don't take this the wrong way when I say it's brought on a bit of an art identity crisis.  I guess it's just strange that the most beneficial portion of my four years spent in Boston (two cross-country moves and one very expensive MFA degree later, not to mention the three years of endless stress and constant second-guessing that going to art school entails) may prove to be the one-year part-time gig in retail (high-end lifestyle boutique-y retail, but still).  Obviously my satisfaction with what I'm doing with my life is more important than constantly trying to justify the necessity of the degree I sometimes feel like I sacrificed so much to attain (and more and more often lately question why), but it's a hard thing to let go, which might explain why I've embarked on a second round of teaching gig applications for next fall, knowing full well that I'm probably not at all qualified for the mostly tenure-track positions I'm seeing.  Sometimes I feel like I've finally found my people in the craft community (and let's not even get into the ongoing debate about art versus craft) and love the kind of feedback I receive (and getting paid for my goods and services ain't bad either).  Other times I really miss the academic art world, the environment and energy of a college or university, and the kinds of odd digressions that a "conversation piece" can produce during an evening critique.  Having a child was, of course, the most amazing and wonderful experience of my life so far but coupled with the economic recession, was also followed by probably the lowest point in my life professionally speaking.  I feel like things are finally bouncing back (no pun intended) but I also feel like my "professional" future is really uncertain.  I guess I still don't really know what I want to be when I grow up.  We'll see how the next six months play out...

Wow, for a post that began with the simple aim of a little shameless self-promotion, that got a little deep.  Time to stop writing and start making stuff!

Google Android Phone Case Version 2.0

To date, I've sold four of the Android phone cases I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. How cool is that?! Two of my recent sales were actually for version 2.0, so to speak, which I "mocked up" after a prospective customer "convo"-ed me about adding a few more features, namely a second, interior accessory pocket, a top tab velcro closure, and a metal D-hook attached to the side for car keys or a swivel hook/strap combo of some sort.

There's only so much you can do with felt and blanket stitch and the fact that these are completely handmade (I do have a sewing machine but I haven't used it regularly for almost 20 years), but I'm pretty happy with the revised version.  Ironically that customer has yet to buy one but two other customers seemed equally fond of the added features.  So it's all good.

The original phone case is still available, of course (just packaged the custom green and magenta case pictured above), and received a little love from this blog and this one ("an Android for grandma"!) a couple of days after I originally listed it, probably thanks to Neal tweeting about it and one of his followers re-tweeting it.  Not exactly going viral or anything, but I'm glad my little Android dude is getting some love.

By the way, the Makery will be a day late again this week, but this time it's not my fault. The "event" this week's "project" coincides with doesn't start until the 27th. Check back then for a true giveaway, times 2!

cha ching

The economy may be in bad shape but I made three whole bucks today! Actually, I've yet to receive payment, but one of my chick flick note cards was purchased, reminding me not only that I have my own Etsy shop but also that Etsy is a great place to go for handmade and vintage Christmas gifts. Within about an hour of browsing I went from having only half of my list figured out to a collection of "favorites" that could easily take care of all holidays and birthdays through 2009.

If it's note cards, crocheted coasters, or latch hook pillows you seek, you know where to go.

best thing since lolcats

Was it pure coincidence that I enjoyed a third (or fourth?) visit to Babycakes on the day I discovered this site? I'm not sure what made me laugh more, the pics of cakewrecks or the blogger's hi-larious commentary.

ask me about my briefcase

The first day of Event Horizon was indeed pushed back to Sunday, April 13th, due to a last-minute, early morning call, while it was raining pretty heavily outside, combined with a forecast of intermittent showers. In the long run, Saturday ended up being nicer than Sunday, but that was the decision we made at about 6:25 a.m. on Saturday. We held a shortened, one-location-only version of the event on Sunday, which got cut short around 12:30 due to, you guessed it, rain. Planning something outside in New England in the spring (well, anytime of year, really) is tricky.


Wednesday's weather, on the other hand, was just about perfect for hanging out in Somerville's Davis and Union Squares all day. I even got a little pink on my nose and cheeks. I made some last-minute changes to my project based on Sunday's trial run, but even so, I think the event confirmed my attraction to the Internet, initially, as the medium for this project.


Trying to duplicate the Google map I created for The Lost Object Project in some sort of tangible form proved to be more difficult than I thought. All of the pushpins refer to locations where lost objects were last seen. All of the existing stories were in a book next to the map, and new submissions were added to the bottom of the cork board as they were received, with numbered pushpins that corresponded to the pushpin at the location. But because most of the contributions I've received so far, and nearly all of the new stories submitted on Wednesday were for locations in and around Boston, there was a cluster of pushpins covering most of New England (and a little bit of the midwest and Atlantic Ocean as well). I guess I could have had two maps - one for the world and an inset map of the Boston area.


I did manage to make the project a little more self-sufficient, though, so that people browsing the projects at the event weren't completely dumbfounded when they came across mine, especially if I was elsewhere in the square. And I guess the point was to engage the public (in other words, maybe making it self-sufficient wasn't the point), but I think that was probably my least favorite part of the day. I like interacting with total strangers (especially considering some of the interesting folks I came across in Davis Square) via the Internet much better. My theory about that is that while I'm finding myself to be increasingly interested in communication and interaction, I still have a painter's temperament. In other words, I think I enjoyed the tedious couple of hours it took to hole-punch and adhere those little numbers to the tops of the pushpins than I did interacting with people in the square. Also, when I talk about this project in particular, I feel like I sound more like a psychologist than an artist. I get the impression that people wonder what part of this is art, and maybe that's a valid question to ask. But it wasn't a question I was prepared to answer on the spot.

Anyway, by the time we relocated to Union Square in the afternoon, I was beat, but the afternoon flew by. I had some difficulty with my original setup due to the wind, which wasn't a problem in Davis. This is what I came up with.


The only effort I made to engage the public and attract people to my project, really, was a t-shirt I made and wore that day that simply stated, "Ask me about my briefcase," the briefcase, of course, referring to the personal impetus that started the project over a year ago. But even that I didn't particularly want to talk to people about, preferring a rather cryptic introduction to the project that would inspire people to simply participate. Turns out most people really just wanted to know about my briefcase. I did collect a few new submissions to the project, however (and distributed a small portion of the stack of 250 postcards I designed and had printed about a year ago), so I'll be posting those to the project's website over the next few days.

snooty much?

In a recent Rhizome post, Ed Halter briefly notes the paintings of British artist Dan Proops, beginning the post with ArtFagCity's "damning" description of Proops as a "BoingBoing artist," in other words (in case you're having a hard time understanding why being BoingBoing-ed would be "damning"), "glossing that mega-blog's indiscriminate penchant for tiki-bar kitsch, airbrushed girlies and steampunked everything as merely 'art pabulum for readers who can clearly handle more'." Halter goes on to more or less agree, adding that if you can't make it to London to see the show in person, "be sure to catch them sometime in the future, when they will be displayed in the spacious living rooms of Hawaiian-shirted IT dudes with more money than taste." Sheesh.

how did I not know about this?

I learned (a couple of days after the submission deadline) about this blogging scholarship because an undergrad at my school apparently got his blog into the finalist round and sent out a school-wide e-mail asking fellow students to vote for his blog. If he wins - and it doesn't look like he will - he gets $10,000. For blogging about "interesting" and "unique" topics while attending college full-time.

I clicked on the blog with the most votes so far expecting to find some freshman rantings, you know, the kind of kid who has 367 "friends" on MySpace and has been blogging since birth about the indie film they just made, the novel they wrote at age 9, and/or the various small businesses they've started. Instead, I was directed to this blog, about "one mom's journey through life, law school, and breast cancer." Wow. Talk about putting my semester gripes into perspective...

a new project-based portfolio

I finally found some time this weekend to update the shell of a page that was my new online portfolio, ever since my domain transfer of wazocafegallery.com finally went through and the temporary link I'd put on the new page went nowhere. Only half of the projects have links so far (first to a short blurb and from there you can check out a gallery of images) but I hope to have all the pages live by the time school resumes in just over two weeks (including a space for the very much in-progress thesis project).

As always, I am open to feedback and suggestions! About the website and the projects, for that matter!

new website

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently purchased a new domain name and I finally got around to redesigning my new website. It's really just an artist website now, since I wasn't exactly maintaining the virtual cafe (not really sure how that would have worked, anyway), gallery, or reading room portions of the old website. But I'm keeping the old domain name. Eventually, wazocafegallery.com will simply redirect to birdismymiddlename.com...as soon as my current registrar releases the domain so that the transfer I paid for last week can actually proceed. Sheesh, who knew domain transfers were so complicated?

Anyway, the portfolio section of the new site is still under construction. I think I'm going to go for a project-based organization rather than media-based. It seems silly to scatter one project over two or three media. As for this here blog, I think I'll keep it as is for now since I haven't figured out if and how to redirect folks from this address to say a custom domain blog.

I welcome your feedback! And any technical tips you might have on the blog switcheroo would be appreciated as well...