mini break

...as sweet (yet zany) bridget jones would say, I'm off on a mini break this weekend. well, actually today. I'm headed to New Hampshire to visit my dear friend Sarah, where she has just moved not too long ago. I'm excited to see her new place, and help her figure out how to nail pictures up on the wall which are proving impossible to penetrate. (any suggestions?)

We are going to go see the little folksinger, ms. ani difranco herself, this evening in Concord. I'm really excited, though (embarrassing fact alert!) I've seen her approximately 11 times already in my little life. But she keeps on playing and I keep on listening, so it's a symboitic relationship, really. :) I think it will be a great time. It's been a few years since I saw her last, in which time she had a baby girl, who I hope she talks about at great lengths. who doesn't love babies?

Then I'm off to Somerville, near Boston, to see darlings Jaclyn and Vanessa, for a rockin' Leap Year party and possibly some rollar skating. I will attempt to get some more homework done in the time between these wonderful events. We'll see how that goes.

Oh and if you did, thanks for buying one of my new prints over on Etsy -- I've sold a few now, which is really encouraging. I will continue to create some more fab gocco goodness, as I'm really enjoying it and people seem to like what I'm cranking out, so it's all good.

new print for sale

birdie print 3, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

new gocco (screenprint) for sale in my etsy store. This little mod birdie is helping us look toward spring, standing amid 5 robin's-egg-blue eggs and a big mossy green leaf. It's spring-in-a-print, and would look great on your wall!

(I love to gocco) Did i mention that I love my gocco? :)

spring colors

ok, I lied when I said I needed more spring color -- I do have some lovely forsythia branches growing in the kitchen, brightening every day here in the cold, old farmhouse. I really need to get back outside and cut some more, because they are doing so well, and the bush really needs a haircut anyway. The first winter we lived here I tried the same thing and nothing happened, which was kind of depressing. But after John gave the whole shrub a good trimming that spring it Popped the next year around, and now I'll always know I can get a shot of yellow in the dead of winter.

My mom also bequeathed to me a huge pot of amaryllis which I am just hoping, willing to grow, but they're not as happy here as on her windowsill, I can gauruntee that.(john took this shot of me and Jane enjoying the yellow flowers and a nice mug of hot chocolate. She really likes to get cuddly when you're trying to work, especially when you're writing or working on a computer.)

Geeking out on typography

hahaha!

no really, it's funny!
this was posted by one of my classmates, and cleverly created by Ironic Sans; you can buy one if you want, or even buy one for me. ;)

did a little drawing

narcissus on my mind?

i need to find something more colorful to bloom in this, the depths of winter, though. I made up the color of the pot, the one I actually have them in is very much the same color as the blossoms, which looks nice in person, but not in this drawing.

maybe i'll make it into a digital print on a card? or a gocco?

well, regardless, enjoy the thoughts i'm sending of almost-spring!

David Berkeley

I just re-found this great musician (singer/songwriter, folkskinger?) David Berkeley. I downloaded his album The Confluence, and it's super lovely. you will like it, promise. I discovered him way back in San Francisco when I was gently dragged along to a seemingly impromptu performance in an odd little space that appeared to be the first floor of someone's house in, oh, Western Addition maybe? The Haight? I'm really not sure where it was. but i remember the room and the amazing music and the good company like it was yesterday. I was with a bunch of people I had just met, and one good friend from the shire who was living out there, too.

I have to say that it was a pretty magical night-- one of those 'times' that are just like you might imagine living in San Francisco is supposed to be, at least wonderfully streotypically, not actually really like that, at least not if you have a job (or three, like i did). Anyway, we walked into this big little room (maybe it was an old storefront, actually), with some crude sound equipment, lots of pillow and maybe 5 chairs? We all sat around leaning on the walls and one another and listened to the really wonderful sounds of David Berkeley. And everything was good. on into the night... :)

Mass MoCA

this saturday we took a trip up to Williamstown and North Adams to absorb some Berkshire culture. The Williams College Museum of Art is always free, but in my mere 27 years living in and out of the berkshires i haven't actuall set foot inside, so I decided to change that. My favorite parts were the giant warhol in the stairwell (below) and a pretty aaaaahhhmazing set of marble (?) slabs from, oh, 5,000 years ago with Sumerian Cunieform pressed into their surfaces-- one of the earliest form of analphabetic writing. this was particularly exciting for me because it is pretty much the first graphic design, ever. astounding. and they still exist for me to look at. no i can't read it, but who cares how many barells of grain one old dude sold another old dude? (channelling bill and ted....)

the eyeballs watch you as you come and go from WCMA...
and meanwhile, as i sneakily took pics inside Mass MoCA...


this piece is by Spencer Finch-- pretty cool.



this exhibit was pretty great, too-- tho i think i'd like it better if it wasn't moving. the text was projected in a rotating fashion around the room, and you got to sit on these giant HYPERCOLOR (yeah, i know, we're lucky!) beanbag chairs to view it. Helvetica not really used to it's best, though.


blurry, but super neato icon of North Adams these days-- the upside-down Maple trees. They even sell syrup tapped from them....

and then, behold, winter wonderland once again-- this is from yesterday, Sunday, just down the street from our house. ('On account of that frosting....)

gocco my world

how goes the gocco? it's so much fun, i'm pretty much addicted. but i have done a TERRIBLe job of keeping my studio clean this winter, so i'm having a tough time making room for wet prints, and keeping supplies organized. Kari was nice enough to lend me some great inks she had, and i'm waiting on my very own new stash of colors to arrive any day now from the paper source. I think they are comparable in price to those on ebay, and i'm pretty sure they'll arrive sooner, tho i can't be sure. They were really slow in sending wholesale stuff to the store, but I'm pretty sure that's a somewhat separate beast, at least that's what logic tells me and what I remember from working there.


these fun lil' cards are for sale in my etsy shop-- I am going to do three more from drawings Thom made one day on a placemat. We'll see if they sell in a set?