Artsy Friday - Skylines

I got this mug at the Veteran's Thrift Store in Glendale today:

79 cents. I couldn't resist. The minute I picked it up I had flashbacks to Savannah and Charleston (South Carolina) and New Orleans and San Francisco. When I showed it to Erik he said it looked like Shepherdstown. It's all of those places rolled into one lovely mug.

What does it remind you of?

Speaking of skylines, it's Artsy Friday. That mug reminded me of this, that's hanging in our hall:

My friend Fred did it. It's titled "dis be dat for k.b." Fred and I (and Kendra and Eric [but not my Erik]) shared a house in Shepherdstown when we were in college. A few years later I was in Savannah and Fred lived 4 doors down. He made me this drawing of the Savannah skyline as a going away present. That bridge was amazing. He said it was a map/maze of my life beyond Savannah. So far it's been pretty accurate.

Artsy Friday - Lord North

Sorry for the recent deluge of kid pics. All our family and friends are on the other side of the country and sometimes I want to send them pictures showing how the kids have grown. I'm bad at email, but I can blog! Soon I will return you to your regularly scheduled kokoleo.

Today is Artsy Friday and I was looking for something around the house to post about. Instead of messing with the camera I decided to pull this one from Erik's website:

It's hanging by the front door. He painted it in 1999? I think. I remember walking into his studio in Savannah and seeing it in progress and proclaiming it was mine. This was years before Sage was born. Friends say it looks like us but he insists he didn't have that in mind when he did it. Either way, I love it.

That's not always the case. I mean, I love that he's and artist and I love how he can create something from nothing, but honestly, would you hang this over your dining room table?

Eek! I like it, but it scares me. It's not really something I want to stare at while I'm eating my spaghetti.

The first time I noticed Erik was at a party. He was wearing this ugly baseball cap with Mickey Mouse on it and dancing like a freak. I asked my friend John who that guy was and he said, "Erik VanHorn. He's actually pretty cool." I still thought he was a freak. The first time I really noticed him was at an art show at the epicenter. I fell in love with a drawing and asked my friend Jamie who the artist, Lord North, was and he pointed to the guy yelling into the microphone - Erik. The first time I really really noticed him involved my 21st birthday and bottles of Hot Damn and Southern Comfort, but I won't go there. The first piece of art he ever gave me was this:

Which is allowed to hang in our dining room.

Fast-forward 12 years and here we are in (North) Hollywood, CA with two kids and pets that aren't Koko or Leo. He's painting again. Canvases-in-progress now cover the garage. It's fun to watch. I can't wait to pick one out to keep.

Sage's stuff.

Sage wrote this itinerary for his playdate with Ava today:

It says:

Ava
1. run through the Sprinklers
2. get Dry
3! go to Ikea

I was going to have McKenna choose the contest winners again but she was in no mood. I didn't even ask her to. She was feverish and clingy and uncomfortable all day. Her teeth are coming in, poor girl, so Sage volunteered to pick the winners. I printed out two pages of names and told him to circle two.

He read them all and then circled bookwormdragon, because that looked cool to him, and I am Jamie Sue!, probably because he liked the exclamation point. Bookwormdragon didn't have a link, but check out Jamie Sue's neat stuff. Congrats! Email me your addresses and I will send you each a pin.

Lastly, for Artsy Friday, here's a painting Sage did:

It's a snail; inspired by our backyard, which is full of them.

Artsy Friday - Son of a Seamstress

Sage was asked to write and illustrate "th" words in kindergarten the other day and here's what he came up with:

and
Ha!

Artsy Friday - Sewing Art

There's this store on Magnolia in Burbank called Out-of-the-Box (not to be confused with the thrift store Out of the Closet, which I love). I stopped in one day last year to see what it was like. The clothes weren't really my style, more for the middle-aged mom set (wait, I resemble that label), but the thing that really caught my eye was this:

It's a huge painting up high on the wall in the back. Unfortunately, it's not for sale. I've been back a few times just to visit it though, and the last time I was in they let me take this picture.

I've been looking for a sewing-themed work of art for my new studio (which I have yet to fully move into, more on that later). Erik says I should make one myself, and I probably will, but I like looking at other people's art too.

I fell in love with this painting I found on Flickr by Janet Karam. In fact, I love all her paintings.

On Etsy I found this print, by a seller named eepeadee. And then eBay always has some cool vintage ads and prints. I like this one.

When Michelle Caplan posted this one on Flickr, I knew I had to have it (especially since it's a one-of-a-kind.)


And now it's mine. Thanks Michelle. I love it! "Sabine" (that's what she named her) will now oversee all my seamstressing in my new studio.

Artsy Friday - Jamie Zollars

Check out this cool onesie Jamie Zollars sent McKenna soon after she was born.

How cool is that? We have friends and family who didn't even respond to our email birth announcement with a simple "Congrats!" or "Welcome!" but Jamie remembered I was (very) pregnant at the last Felt Club show and checked my blog to see when she was born and then sent us this. What a sweetheart! Thank you Jamie!

I love Jamie's work. The first time we did a show together I bought one of her cards to frame and put in Sage's room. At the last show I bought this one for McKenna's room.

Last night I was reading one of our favorite magazines, Juxtapoz , and came upon this near the front:

It's and ad for an art show at the CoproNason Gallery in Santa Monica where Jamie's show "Melancholia" is on display. I said to Erik, "Hey, I know that girl! She sent McKenna that cool shirt you liked." He was impressed that I have such a cool craft show friend. Thanks again Jamie! You rock.

Artsy Friday - All our studios

The old epicenter was where I met Erik. It was an old garage that a few of our friends set up studios in and started group painting projects. After a few months the building got sold and torn down and turned into a mini-mall. The new epicenter was on Route 45 just past Sheetz outside of Shepherdstown.

Part of an "Amnesia Box" of Shepherdstown pictures our friend Jen made for us when we moved to Savannah.

We fixed up this guy's old hay barn and he let us have art shows and concerts there. It was a pretty good deal for him seeing as how he got his junk-filled barn cleared out and had insulation, walls, a ceiling, track lighting and a hardwood floor installed for free, plus the grass got mowed and we planted sunflowers. We had over 20 people working on the place in some capacity or another and we put together group and solo art shows, poetry readings, bonfires, life drawing sessions, and silkscreening nights. Everything was great until the damn Zoning Commission got involved. We were getting press and a pro bono lawyer was helping us out but in the end it succumbed to the Man. Looking back I can't believe were so driven to do it all in the first place, but these were the days before the internet (and cell phones) and also before many of us got 9-5 jobby jobs and had houses of our own to fix up and a bunch of kids running around. We were so green and naive back then. I bet if we had the space to do it again we could do it legit this time. But where's the fun in that?

Us inside the epicenter. We look so young. and dirty.
Also taken by Jen.

Erik and I have always had to make room for our art stuffs. The trick is to amass so much stuff that you can't NOT carve out space for a studio, even if it's crammed into a corner of the dining room, tucked up in a loft, in a garage, on a back porch, etc. (these are all places our stuff has inhabited). We've also learned that we're not very good at sharing a workspace. I don't like stepping around his gigantic paintings and he doesn't like pulling pins out of the soles of his feet. I often think about how much room we would have if we didn't have such cumbersome hobbies, but then I have no idea how else we would fill those spaces.

Backyard in Bedington (snowing). The studio is the long building further back.

Our first house (that we owned) in Bedington came with an old stable. We spent the entire time we lived there slowly fixing it up ourselves - installing insulation, walls, a floor, a ceiling, track lighting (deja vu) and having painting sessions and dartboard championships out there. It was right after we had Sage and couldn't go out and party anymore. It's pretty good for marital bonding too.

Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean, balancing sheet rock above your head while standing on ladders and screwing it into the ceiling together, then standing back and looking at your new and improved space makes for a sense of accomplishment. We barely even got to use the studio we built because we moved out to California soon after. I hope whoever bought our house appreciates it.

We're too busy to undertake such time consuming endeavors like that now. We've got two kids and I've got kokoleo orders to fill and Erik's got a real job and Ballad of Sinister to work on. So this time, we hired professionals to build us a studio. Lest you think we're rich and can throw our money around the house all willy-nilly - we're not. We refinanced our mortgage and locked in a new lower rate and the bank gave us a bunch of money for home improvements. I don't know how exactly it works, but it's awesome. Too bad almost half of it got eaten up by our recent deluge of unexpected bills. But! We're still going through with the addition, even if it means we'll be broke for a while.

Here was the screened-in back porch before:

And then they did this to it:

and this

and now it looks like this.

They're coming back Sunday to finish it. I hope. I trust them and it looks like they're doing a good job. They're fast! And it's strong too. And it has electricity. And soon it will have windows and doors. I can't wait to move in.

Artsy Friday - Sage's world

Sage has been drawing variations of this scene lately. Here's another:

They all have the same elements - a sun, birds, grass, trees, a boy (Sage) with a square frame around him, a line hanging down from the square, and a box off to the left side with circles in it.

It's his "favorite place" - our backyard. The square to the left is our tiny side porch that can barely hold the three chairs (two for us, one little one for him) and a flowerpot we have on it. The frame around the boy is a rusty (albeit sturdy) old clothesline and the line hanging down is his swing. It's a sorry excuse for a swing set, but he loves it.
Poor kid. When he was a baby and we were still living in West Virginia he had all this (for about 1/5 the price)

and he doesn't even remember it. They don't make land like that around these parts. Luckily, Sage doesn't feel like he's missing anything. He loves his swing and the rusty old clothesline it hangs from. It's his "favorite place."

Artsy Friday - Circus Liquor

Just one of the exciting attractions in our neighborhood. . .


Circus Liquor! Sage used to think this was some sort of funland for kids and wondered why we never took him there.


This clown taught him how to read the word LIQUOR and WINE, which Sage now shouts whenever we pass it. He also knows how to read XXX, Tattoo, Smoke Shop, 99 cents Only, and GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! Yes, North Hollywood has it all.

Artsy Friday

Friday's theme is Artsy Friday where I'll show random art from around our house, graffiti in the neighborhood, drawings by Sage, or stuff from galleries and museums around L.A.

I thought I'd start with this:


The first piece of art I ever bought. It was the summer of 1995 and I had just moved into a house with three of my friends, Kendra, Fred and Eric (but not my Erik), in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I was working as a waitress at The Bistro during the week and at The Dragonfly (a vintage clothing store) on the weekends. This piece of art caught my eye when it was in the window at Shepherdstown Paint and Art.

Why does that house seem so familiar? Who was that expressionless woman staring out the window? Why are there stars in a sunny sky? Why is the house all blurry? Whatever happened to that lady?

But I walked on, and for weeks when I passed the window I couldn't help but stop and stare at it.

How old was that lady when she died? Where is that house? I swear I've been there. Why the gold stars? Gold stars remind me of elementary school and how I never got enough of them. Who is this R. Reus who signed this picture? What does the R. stand for?

It started to bother me really. I found it both haunting and beautiful. Finally, I walked into the shop and bought it for $35, which was a lot of money for me at the time but seems like a steal now. It's been by my bed in every one of the 8 houses I've lived in ever since. That strange lady in he window watches over me while I sleep.

I've never been able to answer any of the questions I first had about it. If anything, I've just come up with more questions. But now, the best thing this picture makes me think of is a 20 year old me living in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, working at The Bistro and The Dragonfly, living on Main Street with Kendra and Fred and Eric, and one day, in the summer of 1995, buying myself a work of art.

Like shopping, only better

One of the great things about making stuff is being able to swap with other people who make stuff. In the past few months I've been able to clothe my boy, decorate my home and adorn myself in some fine handmade goods. Check it out:

I traded some kokoleo clothes for an original work of art by my friend Holly:


Score! I love it! I simply told her I was fond of fabric, Day of the Dead skeletony stuff and that the words "Forget-Me-Not" have a special meaning to me and she just went from there. I had no idea what to expect and was more than pleasantly surprised when I opened the box.

Also, from another crafty friend of mine, Adrien at Keen Designs, I got these:

Excuse my hairy neck. Ewww. But also, Ahhhh! Aren't they beautiful? I especially love her pirate stuff.

Sage is also a recipient of cool handmade stuff. Check him out in this cowboy tee by Bumba Dee (who I met at the Bazaar Bizarre) and funky patchy pants by Textile Fetish.

And finally, here's a nice haul I got at All Aboard!, a cool shop in Echo Park that carries kokoleo. I traded some diaper bags for some of the cool stuff that the owner Gina has in her shop - perfume, handmade stationary, notebooks, clocks, monsters etc. Sweet!

It's like I went on a big shopping spree and my bank account was none the wiser. Fun! Now, if only gas stations took stuffed monsters in exchange for filling up my tank or the electric company accepted baby clothes as payment, wouldn't that be nice?