laundry feelings.

comis sans does not make me feel at home. but neatly folded stacks do. i even got to clean the front seat of the car.

none sense.

photo by reverend aitor

the sweetie pie press is proud to announce that we now accept payment for our goods and services in noney.

fresh baked magpie.

okay, parades aside, there was another purpose for our visit to somerville. we can come from afar to seek out magpie, the only indie craft shop i know of in the boston area. started as a collaborative project between five folks, the shop shifted into solo-owner dave sakowski's care just over a year ago. i understand the feelings involved in taking on a collaborative project all alone. some things are harder and some things are easier. dave seems to have an interesting game plan, though. instead of stocking the shop from the divergent aesthetics of five brains, he has been working to fill the shelves with reasonably priced staples as well as some exceptional one of a kind art/craft pieces - like former-local, ryan o'rourke's hand painted bird houses and large ceramic owls pit fired on the beaches of los angeles (not pictured, sadly).

i am very happy to announce that the shop is now stocked with a wide array of sweetie pie goods. they even have some of more adult stuff (maybe ask behind the counter is you want something smutty for that special someone).

dave and the entire shop are a delight. i highly recommend a visit if you are in the area or live there. thanks for the great afternoon, magpies!

memorialable.

today's voyage was supposed to be a very short jaunt from providence to somerville, massachusetts (just outside of boston). but apparently, the sunday of memorial day long weekend means a big parade down somerville's own highland avenue (home of magpie, the indie art and craft shop and our destination). my gps-free navigation techniques don't always make diversions the easiest, especially endless diversions in an old town with winding streets. i was totally sweaty, irritated and late. it took us lots of figuring and stops and starts to find the place. but once we had found it, put our bags down, met the owner david and settled in, everything changed. jasmine arnold palmer in hand (thank you david, you must have seen the crazy in my eyes and knew just how to cure it), i watched in wonder as a very epic very american display of...everything...passed by the shop. i don't entirely understand commemorating the austerity of war by firing off old muskets in the streets (or being a pre-teen beauty queen, or putting a dog in a stroller), but i was thrilled nonetheless. and there were shriners! i have never seen a parade with shriners before. they were by far my favourite thing going. they had everything - little cars, motorcycles, bands of questionable cultural sensitivity, little mac trucks, trailers with speakers on top, segways...it was beyond my imaginings. i felt like i was imbibing a whole life of wild americana at once.

i took too many pictures to celebrate. please indulge me:

certainly a weird context in which to place aitor drawing a chalk sign. i got kind of giddy. what was it we were trying to remember again?

vandal in the wind.

dear providence dweeb who sulked up in the night and spray painted a big line down the side of my car,

fuck you. fuck you very much.

just because my car looks crazy doesn't mean you can make it look crazier.

i hate you. in fact, everyone you know hates you.

becky

rocket fuel.

when i take a bunch of pictures of really fantastic show/installation and can't tell you who did it, please remember that i am only a blogger amid all the other things i do. i also feel this cocky sense that every scrap of information i need will be on the internet and readily findable. this is the long way of saying that if you know who currently has all this stuff up at white electric in providence, please let me know.

aitor can vouch for the coffee quality here, too. i am a total teetotaller so i know nothing of these matters. but he bought a pound for the travelling percolator.

sea-side pea-town.

we woke up today at deb and alec's lovely home (totally cluttered by our presence) and got ourselves down to craftland at a very reasonable hour in the late morning. i love both our weekend home and the shop/gallery we were spending the day in. craftland was born as an annual pop-up shop in december that recently made the transition to a year-round shop and gallery in downtown providence. the annual show still goes on - the shop and gallery are stripped of moving walls and the conversion takes place. even though i have had my stuff in the show for the past couple of years, i have not been through providence since 2008. i could hardly believe this when we figured it out. so this trip marks my first visit to the year-round shop and gallery.

even though i was supposed to spend the day seated at my trunk show station, i found endless excuses to get up and wander around. the ladies at craftland have done an excellent job at selecting the stock (the collection being curated mostly by jen corace). there is a lot of stuff here that i haven't seen elsewhere - risd must be turning out a lot of impressive print makers, for instance - or the local community just found itself here. even the items from artists i see in many shops are selected with a very specific care towards a cohesive collection. this has always been clear in the button packs and singles ordered from me. they always go for very unique and deliberate combinations of stuff that i don't usually think of. craftland feels totally its own. and it's huge by indie craft shop standards. huge.

you can click on photos to find out more about the pieces. hopefully, deb and the craftlanders will help me fill in the blanks about pieces i took poor notes on.

there was also a show in the gallery that i was pretty enamoured with. curated by liz sheehan, it focuses on souvenirs (one of many themes of mine). i especially liked the wooden pennants and tiny polaroid dioramas by james milostan for the paul bunyan fine art project. the preservation of this sort of mythology is a real soft spot for me. i also have to find out more about brooklyn rehab - the banner under which alyssa zygmunt made those pigeon feather specimens and accompanying bed bugs (not pictured).

so long, craftland. we will be back. oh, we will be back.

rhode trip.

after a morning cafe/office session with katie (in new york doing comedy for a few months - go find her before she leaves town), we were ready to head out for the ocean state. aitor took some really lovely pictures from the fdr as we made our way to new england:

everything was going swimmingly (if at a crawl) until we stopped at the connecticut welcome centre. after a brief break and washroom stop, the car wouldn't turn over. i felt awash with the fear of an expensive night in darien, connecticut - motels, repairs, and an early morning drive to craftland (if we were lucky). it was like a new york nightmare. here we were, destined for a nearby place that would be cooled by more foliage than our concrete home only to find our homes dashed my mechanical dismay. in a rare stroke of luck, however, we just needed a jump and charge of the battery. this only added a couple of hours to the trip (not the forty i was imagining). we got to providence with just enough time for some dice games and drinks with deb and alec. what a perfect ending to a sweaty car day.

ocean state horizons.

photo by michael christofaro

okay, rhode islanders (rhodies?), get ready because the sweetie pie press will be descending on your capital city for one day to open up trunks and share our wares with you.

sweetie pie + misanthrope trunk show
saturday, may 29
noon - 4:00pm
craftland
235 westminster street
providence, ri

we, along with the misanthrope specialty co., are fortunate enough to be spending an afternoon at craftland - the newest and coolest shop going. we will both have all sorts of things up on offer, including a bunch of things that have proven too costly to wholesale to shops - so you can only buy then from us in person - hand illustrated note cards! crocheted accessories! hand printed diptychs! an (un)lucky few can also sign up for unflattering portrait slots with reverend aitor (while appointments last).

although i have sent my stuff off to craftland's shop and their annual pop-up shop in the past, the will be the first time i will have set up my own stuff there. i am really excited to see craftland's year-round space and visit with the folks who make it all happen. providence is a pretty great place. i just learned that it is the best of the underrated.

juxtaposopolis.

ashton kutcher into manhattan and our of manhattan. subway poster interventions here can be pretty thoughtful and well composed.

below: katie and i compare choices at a choose-your-own-frozen-yogurt place. my post-taco choices were plain, green tea and some fresh berries. just right.