I've been busy busy busy in the studio preparing for this Sunday's I Heart Rummage and reading this Seattle Living article just gave me a new burst of energy and inspiration!

I'll be posting again later to give you all a sneak peek of some of the new designs showing up at the Crocodile Cafe this Sunday...

Tonight I met, planned and schemed with some of the leading lovelies from I Heart Rummage.

And it was the best "community art group" meeting I have ever had.

Have I ever come away from something more infused and inspired to be the best damn artist I can be? Nope, I think not. In a sum - we rocked. I'll be a key part of grouping some of the biggest and best Indie talent the NW has to offer. Look out Seattle! IHeart everything is gearing up to put out!

Did I mention that I would be hawkin the wares at I Heart Rummage next Sunday?

Coming right up: Sunday, June 3rd Noon to 4pm at the Crocodile Cafe.

And now it is time to catch some sleep so I can get up "early" and make a bunch. Love Love Love Saturdays! Or should I say, I Heart?

Heart,
Rekoj

Finally! A productive evening was had. Even painted some Rekoj kid clothes. Guess I needed to just rant out that last post to kick me into gear...

And here we have it - I'm finally posting some of my actual work on the blog. I have been completely reluctant to. So many Internet copyright horror stories have been instilled into me that I've had this blog for... wow... a near year and have yet to really share my work. I'm such a Luddite sometimes - I swear I'm a member of the techno age I swear!

But really, I think that it is because the work I do is so simple and graphic in nature I know that it would be quite easy for someone to go off and come out with a sudden mass produced tshirt line or a soda pop flyer or who knows what. And that would hurt. Really hurt. Since so much of my methodology is about uniqueness and one-offs --- Of taking a simple black line drawing that could easily be a screen print but painting it direct to the shirt. Only making one.

Yet, even as I write this I can feel myself wanting to shift. I want to explore wood block prints and art prints. It has more to do with my own sense of the advancement of time rather than anything else. I just can never seem to make enough. It's the problem of doing one of a kinds - you can only do one at a time! Yet one of my long time rationales with myself is that painting an image directly on the shirt takes less time than setting up a screen or carving a block... and I don't get image bored this way either. It's a pushypull.

The studio table has gotten a little dusty. I've been working on small things. I've been playing with colors and line on paper, shying away from the clothing. My focus is either zooming in or scoping out and I can't tell which.

I continually set out with the intention of a lengthy studio night where I doodle on duds, scribble on skirts or paint on patches... but then ... well, life happens? I continually find myself curled up on the couch with a sketchbook or sprawled on the floor, coloring with my bare feet kicked up.

Do I need to check in with my declared artistic purpose? Have I just hit a bumpy spot or am I really wanting to go in a different direction? And if it is a different direction then, well, what the heck direction is that?

I took a month off I Heart Rummage to let myself play. To follow this little path and take a break. Yet here it is, two weeks until show time and I have yet to return. I even had a dream/nightmare where I was at IHR with absolutely nothing new and the girl with the booth next to me was telling me it was all okay - she didn't have new stuff either and no one noticed. I'm thinking of just following that dream and showing up at I Heart Rummage without a single new thing. Stop stressing on myself about output and just let it be. It would mean some serious spring clearance sale that's for sure!

I spent a little bit of time this afternoon rekindling my knowledge of prints. Got a wiggle of a new direction starting up. And also, you know, it doesn't have to be a new direction - just some new fuel to the fire. Cuz no matter my feelings and desires to work on new things, I still got plenty of old to fill the rack at Rummage next weekend. Maybe I'll just run with it and bring some funky new little woodblock print greeting cards to test the waters with...

I'm going to give it a go tonight in the studio and well, I guess I'll see. Maybe tomorrow will find an update of "Oops, nevermind." If it works, I promise to preview the newbies!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REKOJ!

This is a pic of the card my office got me. Pretty much sums up my mood about the day. Between 25 and 30 it's all pretty much ambivalent ain't it...

I did however finish my old journal just in time to begin writing in the new which makes this particular birthday feel like a new year. Making plans and writing resolutions just like January's post-food-coma-diet-promises.

Birthday resolutions such as:

Create every day.

Figure out what to do with it all - (i.e. Update Etsy and get around to building that new website)

Write every day.

Save travel $$$.

Live my dreams and quit whining.

It's just that easy, right?

HOORAY! For a new journal!

I have been making my own journals for about 7 years now and they just keep getting better. It's a reflective, meditative process that involves looking over the past year, where I've been and where I want to be to turn those feelings, thoughts, ideas and new skills into a tactile bound bundle of fresh pages.

My previous journal was bound in a single piece of painted silk and creamy yellow paper. This time, I pushed the envelope of my silk painting skills a little further by painting and then cutting the painting apart to quilt. The silk material I collected from an old orange shirt that I had worn in the Nevada desert during a week of Burning Man and never wore since. It just wasn't appropriate anymore out of the context of playa dust and open blue sky. So I cut it apart, salvaged both cuffs for a future project and went to town with free form dye. I then cut out pieces and bits that intrigued me. Those pieces and bits came together into this.


I hadn't set out with the intention, but at the end, I realized that I somehow managed to finally capture the feeling of a vacation to my Aunt's farm in Idaho two summers ago. I had gotten up at first light, ate a quick breakfast before stepping out onto the road. I walked clear into the next county by the time the sky looked sunkissed, stretching over roll after roll of green summer wheat fields with the start of turning.

This is my new journal. My pages of morning.