don't tell pinky leon

that i take pictures of other orange cats! i think this may be pinky's cousin saul.

click on photo to see the cute black freckles on this kitty's nose.

open house holiday party + sale

you're invited!

this saturday from 3:00-7:00 pm
6 artists/designers + glögg + cookies
get your handmade holiday gifts

(above are some of the goods i'll be selling. there will be much more by others too {including lisa s.}. check out the flyer for more information.)

curious

i had plans of taking many photos on my beautiful walk across town on thanksgiving to my friends' house. but i only took this one. (i think i was too busy concentrating on not thinking about the grocery bag chafing my hand and pulling on my shoulder.)

this photo is of part of a scene found in a window near duboce park. the scene has a fall/halloween theme, and this here, is a miniature windmill made of maps (hard to see for the reflection). ever since i've lived in sf, the artist who lives in this house and has a storefront-type window, has put such amazing, imaginative, crazy, beautiful, creepy, stunning pieces in his window. (i'm just going to assume it's a man since the house is in the castro and since i don't want to write his/her, s/he for the remainder of this post. but if any of you know different, do correct.) he changes the window pretty frequently (i'd say monthly or seasonally). i wonder if he has documented all his displays and if he presents his art elsewhere as well, or just here for the neighbors, passersby. i'm very curious. now that there is the cute duboce park cafe on the corner, perhaps i should spy on the house and see who this character is....

have any of you fellow san franciscans seen this window?

wow, i just noticed each spoke (or whatever it's called) has a different state map on it.

happy thanksgiving

thank you for all the nice comments about pinky and the cards.

wanted to share some links:

ray fenwick's lettering. check out the poster section of his portfolio. (my favorite is #7 i think)
i also like his photos of letters around his neighborhood (along with funny, sarcastic comments).

mister rob ryan found on behind the curtain (a lovely new to me blog)

off to finish making some mexican icebox cookies that i will soon take (along with a cole slaw) to the feasting i will be doing with friends.

it's ridiculously beautiful out today. maybe i will take some photos on my walk over to the western addition...

have a wonderful day!

06 holiday cards

i ended up taping over the letters on the screen because most of the time only a few of them would print. this (above) was the most letters i could get to show.

it's similar to this drawing of PL in my crosslegged lap.

i discovered gracia & louise this weekend. HOW did i miss them?! lovelies. gracia's blog, louise's blog.

late friday flickrs

screenprinting screens and apron strings

i'm exhausted from screenprinting my holiday cards today. i think the exhaustion is from doing something that i don't really know how to do, and from standing in an awkward (and somewhat tensed) position for three hours while squeegee-ing. the cards came out ok. could be worse, could be better. but i'm actually pretty happy with them. will show the results monday. i didn't make it any easier on myself the way i set the drawings up on my transparency. it's hard to reevaluate and think straight at kinkos (where i made the transparency) because it's so frenzied in there. everyone in there is pissed. the customers are pissed because no employees help you anymore at kinkos. it's all self service now (as i'm sure some of you have experienced). so all of us who are used to the old, more customer service-oriented kinkos get frustrated. (well, i am used to the new kinkos now and rarely try to get help, but even getting an employee to pay attention to you when you're waiting to pay, is difficult.) and the employees are pissed because they (i assume) are expected to be completing all their orders, while having to deal with a bunch of pissed off customers.

but anyway. i still like kinkos because you can just go in there off the street and use their papercutter (which i plan on doing tomorrow). they just don't care. (they also have a scissors, tape and stapler for people to use. in case you're ever like walking around and you suddenly need to make a paper snowflake or {i'm trying to think of something where you'd need scissors, tape and stapler, but i'm too tired.} something.)

so here are the flickr faves for this week.

good things come in twos this week apparently.

empty apartment
o
&hearts
.
ok this one isn't in twos, but i love it.

a rave and a rant

the rave:

i love the sf historic streetcars! i love their color, their shape, their proportions. i love that when you sit inside in the cutely-proportioned seats, you sit by these little windows that make you feel like the windows are for you. similar to train windows.

and look at those cute rounded windows above (in below pic).

i really think things were better designed/proportioned back in the day. (ok i know that's a little vague.) i want them all over town please.

here is some history and info about the cutiepies.

and now the rant...
i read in my graphic communications the printed image book, that in the 1980's scientists discovered that dioxin (which is created when chlorine is used to bleach paper) is a carcinogen that passes up the food chain easily. even low levels create adverse health effects. so as a result of this discovery, europe started making paper that was totally chlorine free (TCF). Currently 40% of European mills are operating TCF. The markets there are spurred by greater consumer awareness of chlorine issues and tighter regulations of chlorinated chemicals. In the US, TCF use is (when this book was printed i guess) expected to reach 10% by the year 2000. this infuriates me. i realize it's a pain in the ass to change up the factories and create a new color matching system for inks (which probably also should be changed to be environmentally friendlier. soy-based inks??), but isn't it worth it to make the changes?

and there are of course thousands of other ways manufacturing could be made more environmentally friendly i'm sure. the shortsightedness and lack of care for the earth and its plants and animals is confounding.

anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg (or pile of paperwaste) on this topic. and i know it is overwhelming as a consumer to get educated on all the products and foods one consumes. kind of makes me want to start a blog just about consumption, researching one item per month perhaps, and writing about how we can produce/consume that item most responsibly. and get industry and government to regulate more responsibly....

tiogruppen

another one of these old post it doodles (i need to get out and take some photos!)

i imagine karin or camilla may have already posted about tiogruppen, but in case not, and in case you haven't heard of them, here's a bit about tiogruppen (directly translated = the ten group). from their site:

Ten Swedish Designers was founded in 1970, when a group of ten young textile artists and designers joined together. They had a previous collective experience of having their designs rejected by the Swedish textile industry, with motivations asserting that their designed patterns were “unsaleable, too advanced and non-commercial.”

here is one of the first posters they produced together.

tiogruppen became very successful in sweden (and beyond). their work has been in numerous museum exhibits and they have worked on collections for IKEA and ahlens (big department store in sweden). today there are three of the group still working together, selling their new products in their store in stockholm (picture of store here).

some of tiogruppen's designs aren't exactly my style, but i appreciate how bold their designs were/are and how they worked together, inspired and supported each other, and created their own thriving business. you can click on the red links on this page to see various designs throughout the years. i like thread (1999) and meeting (2000).

as i've mentioned before, i've always been drawn to the idea of collectives (housing, art, craft, business), perhaps because i'm an only child and i romanticize group efforts. but this is one of my dream jobs, to design and make art and exhibit/promote/sell it collectively with other designers/artists.

thanks kind readers/friends for your words of encouragement on the job front.

on pasta, typewriter ribbons and jobs (again)

the back room of lucca, the italian shop in my hood that sells fresh pasta. i guess this is the pasta-making room. i've never seen it before. it's covered in flour! so soft. looks like snow. i kinda want to go in there and play in the flour.

this evening i changed the typewriter ribbon on ol' remy. not as easy as it sounds. had to thread the ribbon onto the spools manually. my fingertips are now a bluish black. but it is quite satisfying to now be able to easily read what i type on the thing. and i don't have to bang the keys with such great might (just a little might). i found a fun typewriter website for those of you into that sort of thing. (and i KNOW a lot of you are.)

so it looks like i'm going to be tutoring kids in the public schools part time. i'm pretty excited about it. i think it will be challenging in a good way. but i still need to find about 10 hours more of work a week. any bay area peeps have any need for a part-time worker at your place of employment?

it's funny because abby has written some about her change of jobs. i wrote to her a little while back saying something like, "my ideal job doesn't exist. because right now my ideal job would be hanging out with old people one day a week, tutoring kids one day a week, baking one day a week and making stuff a few days a week." when i got the tutoring gig, i thought maybe i could actually create a version of my mishmash ideal job, at least while i'm in school...some days i think positive thoughts like this, and other days i think very narrowly about my job situation and feel frightened. it helps to keep thinking about dream jobs though, and to hear/read about all of your job struggles, compromises and successes.

my next post will be about another kind of dream job of mine, and about some inspiring people who made (a version of) that dream job happen.

friday flickrs + book rec

(no new photos this week, so it's a 1976 {i think} one of me, some family and some strangers dancing {or about to dance...} around the midsummer pole in sweden. it has no relevance to today's post or the season! but look at those florals and the knee stockings on the girls in the background! and i want a green velour jumpsuit!)

flickr faves this week:

gwen's homey polaroids
another by svane
i like traveling photos.
a breakup story.
a love story. (check out the other pics in this series too.)

the first book i read by anne lamott, i didn't like so much. (the strange thing is, i can't figure out which book it was now. i've read the descriptions of all her books and none of them fit...) but i decided to give her another chance since she is a bay area writer. the next book of hers i read was tom jones. i liked it ok, and i especially liked some of her descriptions. so poetic, inventive and right on. next i read blue shoe, and just yesterday i finished crooked little heart, both of which i quite liked. i like how vulnerable the people in her stories are. i like that all her families are non-traditional, made up of friends and single parents, etc. there are sick people, old people, kids. people struggle and love (and are sometimes cruel). her parent-child relationships are particularly real to me. i feel such tenderness for some of her characters. and i like that i recognize the places in her books.
have you read any of her books? did you like them?

have a good weekend!

pinky leon excerpt

pinky leon keeps cleaning his shaved paw. i guess the bald leg against his regular (and thickening for winter) coat feels wrong to him. it is like a strange rock, bare in a a field of grass. hard not to obsess about really. so so smooth, and then abruptly so hairy. i put my finger in the way of his cleaning to distract him and he licks my finger twice, then looks at me annoyed. i don't know how a cat can form such a perturbed expression, like a teenager. i think it's something in the angle of his lashes. he starts to vigorously flap his tail. i move my hand away because i know what comes next.

now he is done cleaning and sleeps in my lap. my little round companion with big round eyes.

i'm off to VOTE

are you?

crafty

this weekend i started to gear up for an open house+glogg+cookie+holiday party+sale that will be at my house on dec. 2. lisa s. will be selling stuff, as will erica, and 3 others who don't have blogs as far as i know, but who will sell jewelry, clothing and hats among other things.

worked on a bunch of these cards that are the result of my first screenprinting experience. lisa c. and i screenprinted at the mission cultural center. i love screenprinting! it's one of those things i've been meaning to try for so long. and of course once i finally did it i thought, WHY didn't i try this sooner?! (i am thinking of screenprinting my annual pinky leon holiday cards too.)


also finished one sheep today. she's currently hanging out with my own sheep. i stupidly threw out my sheep template (pinky had vomited on it-ew) a while back, without redrawing it first. dumbdumbdumb.

speaking of craft sales, i wish i'd made it to studio craft in portland. what a wonderful bunch of talented women!

grattis pa fodelsedagen mamma!

kopte hem godbitarna fran tartine. onskar jag kunde fira med dig idag!

har far du en blomma ochsa. ;-)

late friday flickr faves

flickr faves this week:
svane's photos all together
here is one, and
look how long this squirrel's ears are!

sorry it's been so quiet here. having some computering pain. gotta start swimming again.
have a good weekend!