This guy is from Augustus Sherman’s collection of Ellis Island portraits. The photo is dated 1906. He’s listed simply as “Romanian shepherd.”
I looked up the May Day celebrations and rituals of Romania (nearly every country’s got some), and this apotropaic one charmed me:
“The entries to the animals’ shelters are adorned with green branches. All branches are left in place until the wheat harvest when they are used in the fire which will bake the first bread from the new wheat.”
To be clear, the fire is to bake the bread.
Definitely only the bread.
Definitely not the sad American co-ed’s bad boyfriend dressed in a bear suit.
I have some new artwork published in the latest issue of indie journal Lover’s Eye Press.
Check it out and stay a while. Read the lovely literary entries, explore the other artwork, and listen to the great podcast interview with featured artist E. Hughes.
There’s a cliche saying among writers that goes, “I don’t like writing. I like having written.” I feel that way about moving. I don’t like moving. I like having moved.
Justin and I are getting ready to move into a new place in a few months. I’m pumped for more space, a sunroom that has had me salivating with possible arrangements and activities since I first laid eyes on it in December, and — the holy grail of any Chicago spot at a decent price — an in-unit washer and dryer and central air conditioning.
Still. I am feeling major resistance to actually doing the damn thing. I envy the wealthy if only for the fact that they could just hire someone to pack up all their stuff, move it, unpack it, set it up, and hand off the keys to their velvety-soft richie-rich hands in one afternoon.
It’s not like Justin and I have a ton of stuff to move. (We live in a one-bedroom apartment and are jaded from so many prior moves that we’re more likely to throw stuff out before it’s time rather than hoard it up until we have to get rid of it.) And it’s not like we’re moving that far away. (Literally a 15-minute walk, three-minute drive.)
Moving is just one of those things that will always suck. Even for wealthy people with personal packers and Botoxed hands.
I accept this. So to motivate myself, I’m doing what any self-respecting middle-class lady would do: Pinning allllll the decor dreams for this future home on Pinterest. In my head, I’ve lived in at least five different versions of that coveted sunroom at this point. Now I’ve moved on to decorating the bathroom in my mind.
Justin and I have a macro.baby bedspread at our current joint. We’ll probably get a new one for our next place. We talked about doing a macro.baby shower curtain and clock combo too.
And that, my friends, is the key to a lasting creative partnership. Get you a lover who genuinely likes the ish you make!
The Rosa Collection is a series of spiral-bound notebooks with printed front and back cover collage designs I made, inspired by the 1799 botanical etchings of Mary Lawrance.
Metal wire-o binding
Soft-touch coating cover
5 inches x 8.5 inches, 140 dotted pages
Sourced from the U.S.
$20 (shipping cost and sales tax included in price)
These soft-touch cover notebooks are hard to resist.
Chicago friends, come see two of my newest pieces in person, plus work from these awesome other artists!
The Fulton Street Collective group show Journey / Explore opens this Friday, December 10, from 7-10 pm.
The address is 1821 W. Hubbard St. (on Hubbard between Wolcott and Wood, and NOT on Kinzie… that’ll send you to the alley, and that’s not where the show will be though perhaps that’s a cool idea for next time??)
Tickets are $5 and there’s a capacity limit (because 😷), so snag yours now!
As the end of the year (aka gift giving season) rolls up with the top down, I thought I’d show off one of my favorite custom embroidery jobs from the archives.
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I recently finished this custom piece for a dear friend. He wanted to gift an artwork to a friend who loved wrestling and wrestling history. He picked an image from this series of photographs by Irving Penn from 1945 and told me to have at it.
Original image info: Irving Penn, 1945, “Dorian Leigh & Maurice Tillet aka The French Angel”
The man in this photo is Maurice Tillet (1903-1954), the most notorious wrestler of the 1940s, better known by his ring name, ~THE FRENCH ANGEL~.
“He studied 14 languages, wrote poetry, and aspired to become an actor. However, his dreams were shattered when he developed acromegaly in his twenties. … This disorder is caused by an abnormal production of growth hormone usually related to a benign tumor of the pituitary gland… With his new body, Tillet, an educated man and a lover of the fine arts, felt like a monstrosity. Unable to face a life of constant gawking and humiliation, he decided to make drastic changes and use his condition to his benefit.”
At the end of his life, Maurice was a Chicago boy. He died here, too, of a heart attack that came on after he heard that his trainer died. <sobbbbbbing>
My color choices for his wings and the stars on his belt are a direct reference to the Chicago flag.
I almost put the fourth star on Maurice’s belt too, but I just had to do something about Dorian there…
The angle of her foot, the shape of that heel… oh la la, there’s just so much I love about that aspect of the original photograph. I put the last star beneath it to give Dorian her own special place in this piece.
You know you’ve past a certain age threshold as soon as getting socks for Christmas sounds awesome. No? Well, welcome to my blog, fellow kids. Say it with me now (to the tune of LMFAO “Shots”): Socks socks socks socks socks socks! Everybody!
They have all the function you need from your footwear — not to mention the “I’m fun and love graphic design” vibe of a grown ass adult if you’re looking to demonstrate that kind of thing at a Scrabble marathon house party or whatever — plus they’re mismatched so you can feel the sloppy, IDGAF kid-ness of being a kid again.
Soft cotton/recycled-poly blend for enhanced stretch and feel
Seamless design, with reinforced toe and heel in black
Vivid color without any base color peeking through
New on the shop: It’s that time of year again. Time to think about the next one.
Have your best year yet with my dotted, delicious, designed colorful calendar poster. So full of promises for hope, happiness, and horrible alliterations!
Giclée print poster made on thick and durable matte paper (because the matte feels so smooth and sexy).
