Sunday, September 26, 2010

#250

Hello, friends.
We're back from the Halloween and Vine show, and we are tarred. That's "tired" with a southern accent, which I slip into sometimes when I'm. . .tarred.
Here's our website, which I'll be updating in the next few days with some new Halloween pieces.
And here's where you'll find us on etsy.

We set out on Thursday for Petaluma, California with our newly built display and several tubs full of Halloween art, all stuffed into a Toyota Prius borrowed from Jo's mom. We tried to make Tom Tom understand that we wanted to follow 101 all the way down the coast to the show, but he was insistent that we take the interstate. We eventually just ignored him, and we're glad that we did. We got to wind our way through the redwood forest and see oddities like the one log log house and a giant depiction of Paul Bunyan and his anatomically correct ox.
The show was amazing, and no one could believe that it was our first. I met so many incredible people that I had to implore mental games to try and remember all their names, an exercise I'm not particularly good at. I can name most classic rock songs in the first few notes, and my brother and I used to play a game where we would see who could rattle off a synopsis of a Brady Bunch episode the quickest as the opening scene began. . . but names are hard for me. There is a leaky cavity in my head where they are supposed to get stored, but it seems to be filled with information about how Greg will redecorate the den into a groovy pad once Mr. Brady moves all of his architecture crap out of the way of the plot. But I digress. I met a lot of talented and friendly people. That's what I'm trying to get at.

We headed out after the show, planning to find a hotel along the way when my eyes gave out, but they never did. I just jogged around parking lots once in a while to get my blood pumping again and push through 12 hours of what is basically a very boring video game about keeping a car within the lines and within a limited range of speed. Those 12 hours got us back to Jo's mom's house, but it was too early to show up, so we parked at a lookout next to the beach and slept for a while in the car. I woke up to Jo saying, "It's raining on my face. Turn on the car, I need to get the window up."

After switching back to our trusty but quirky '86 Volvo wagon, we knocked out the last 1 1/2 hours to our new house in Sherwood, glad that we had done the show, but relieved to get back to our own bed. Not even Greg's groovy pad can compete with the comforts of our own home.


-Dylan

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

#249

Hello, all!
Sorry that I've gone missing in action again.
We have been toiling night and day (do people still toil?) getting ready for the Halloween and Vine show this Saturday in Petaluma, California. It's our fist show, so we were starting from scratch. Our next show will be a piece of cake now that we have a display built. Some of the display is taken from my puppet set, and some of it (like the sign) was whipped up in the last few days. Here's a picture for ya. . .


We'll be taking highway 101 down the coast, borrowing Jo's mom's Prius to save gas. . . and save us from having to deal with some of the quirks our old Volvo wagon has. The fact that the passenger side window doesn't roll down is nothing but charming when we run our errands locally, but on a 13 hour drive, not so much.
Our website is still up and running, but we've put our Etsy shop in vacation mode until we get back. We don't have a laptop to stay connected, so we'll be hitting the libraries when we can to answer emails. That's how we roll.

-Dylan

Monday, September 13, 2010

#248

Hello, all!
Here's our website, home of our art, and here's etsy, where we rent a room with a view.

Apart from continuing to work on art for the upcoming Halloween and Vine show (52 pieces in the works), Jo and I have been editing. I think editing is the right word for it. We're editing our wants, editing our possessions, and redefining our needs. We got rid of cable TV a while back, and we don't miss it at all. . .not the programming or the bills. We got rid of one of our cars immediately after dropping our daughter off at college. She's using a bike to get around campus, and I'm using a bike to get around town, so why do we need two cars sitting in the driveway? The next thing to go is. . .just about everything, but we'll wait until our son goes off to college in a few years for that. Jo and I have been talking about building a tiny house on a trailer, which has some big advantages. First is that we could build our house in just a few weeks, and it won't take 30 years to pay off. If we use recycled building materials, which are plentiful and free around here, we can build it for almost nothing. The second advantage is that we can take it anywhere, following the good weather, art festivals, or our kids. "That's right, we're parked in your driveway. Deal with it."
Yes, there may be a few disadvantages, like having to get rid of just about everything we own. But we find ourselves using such a small percentage of it each day, maybe it won't be so bad. If you can't picture what I'm taking about, here's an example.

We toyed with the idea of building this thing now in our backyard, like some homemade boat that we tinker on for the next three years before launching it, but we've decided to wait. We'll just keep editing for now.

-Dylan

Monday, September 6, 2010

#247

Hello, friends!
Sorry to be gone so long.
Here's the art. . .
... and there's more on etsy.
Since we last spoke, Jo and I have been feverishly creating pieces for the Halloween and Vine show. You have to watch yourself before sitting on the couch around here. . . there are tiny body parts and heads everywhere.
I helped our friend, Matt, sell his art this week at a guerrilla style art show in Woodstock. That's Woodstock. . . as in the neighborhood of Woodstock in Portland. Everyplace in Oregon is named after somewhere else. So some local young people invited artists and bands to come art up the street, which they blockaded off without permission from the city. But they had asked all of the local businesses, and everyone was cool with it. Matt's jewelry and art made from old skateboard decks drew a lot of compliments and sales. You can check it out here.
So that Woodstock gathering got me excited about selling my own folk art at local shows. I haven't made many guitars or record players out of old junk in the last few years, but I'm going to work on them again and sell them locally. We seem to have the right crowd here to appreciate that sort of thing. Here's a guitar I just finished.


See you later. . .

-Dylan