the crafting revolution

Exciting news! Last week I made a series of accordian books for my class I'm taking at Cooper Union, and my teacher (Esther K. Smith of Purgatory Pie Press) said that she thought they were good enough to sell! She suggested a little independent bookstore called St Mark's Bookshop on the corner of Third Avenue between 8th and 9th Street on the east side of NYC, right by where my class is, that sells artist books.

I checked it out yesterday with my amazing friend Tess and sure enough, they took them! They only take 3 at a time, so I gave them 3 (even though I'd made enough so I had 11 with me, no big deal) and the guy said they could probably go for like $3 each. Hooray! I'm going to check back in after my class on Monday and see if any have sold. (Note: They are also now on sale at my etsy store for the same price.) If you're in the area of Greenwich Village I suggest checking out the bookshop—they had a small but pretty good selection of self-published zines and other artist books. I bought 2 small comic zines for Garrett face cuz he loves stuff like that. Maybe he and I could make some little comic books—he's a really clever illustrator—and we could sell them there too. There are just so many possibilities... Also! There was a zine there called Slice which reminded me of the lovely zine called The Slice that my good friends Stephanie, Megan, Jen, and Whitney made our freshman year of college. I still have all the issues on my computer. Maybe we'll have to bring it back and take the world by storm!

After the bookshop stop Tess and I went over to our friend Henry's art show, also at Cooper Union. Henry is our friend from pre-k. That's right, when we were like 4. Henry and I found each other on facebook our freshman year of college and now we are sort of friends again. He's super artistic and amazing and I love his beard. I gave him one of my books and he seemed genuinely excited to get it, which is really nice and flattering because he is an amazing artist and I just pretend. The art at the show was his and another chick's, and Tess really liked the other chick's stuff; she had two pieces with clouds that were pretty sweet. Tess really wanted to slip one into her purse before we left, but I persuaded her that that was bad form. Henry's stuff was great too, lots of work with textures and colors. My favorite of his was a painting of what looked like the view looking up through a canopy of trees, and then next to it a painting of that painting hanging on the wall. The shadow the canvas cast in the painting of the painting was exactly the same as the real painting on the real wall in real life. Very clever.

Later Tess and I headed over to her brownstone in Brooklyn where we talked crafting and made plans to go to some craft shows together this summer—that's right, we're gonna share a booth and sell Books & Bags—and I convinced Tess to get herself some free business cards so she could impress people with her professionalism and shtuff. We also talked about the importance of blogging so she could have pictures of her stuff online so people can see it if they're interested in buying, etc. All in all it was a super successful night! AND so fun! Tess is seriously one of my most favorite people. Hooray for friends, fun, and art. Also independent bookshops.

ALSO! I would be remiss if I did not at this time post a link to the blog of my good friends Ashley and Rob Lugo. Rob is a super talented ceramics guy (potter? sculptor? what would be the word for one who makes ceramics?) and Ashley is just all around creative and amazing. They recently opened up their own Etsy store and have some great stuff on there. Take a look! You might find something you never knew that you couldn't live without.