big day, chicago.

today started innocently enough with a trip to unique vintage to buy a few travel supplies. other than these inquisition barbies, it was a classic urban thrift experience. gems were hard to come by and pricey for people about to drive into the middle of nowhere.

we then moved on to the more comfortable climes of one of my first retailers, uncle fun. billy read us our playing card-based astrological profiles. i am a benevolent cynic when it comes to such things but they were pretty bang-on psychological profiles. as it turns out, i am a jack of diamonds. who knew?

we stocked the shop up with all manner of billy-approved buttons and stocked ourselves up with a collection of small things that we don't need (except that we totally do) - such is the particular charm of this very special shop. this time, i also made an effort to look up. the counters and drawers are so cluttered with cool junk that i hadn't noticed, for instance, the giant tiger wearing a witches hat or the (i believe) embroidered portrait of a costumed john belushi. there are a few picture below but way more can be found by poking around here.

on our last visit through town, i was sad to find the world's largest spray string sculpture to be gone (reported on here). apparently, it had lost all stability and was decomposing onto the marchandise. well, i am happy to report that it has been replaced by the (world's only?) wish-granting robot.

living in our precarious nomadic way, we partook heartily in some good fortune hunting before moving on. speaking of good fortune and uncle fun, it looks like we will be spending a weekend in their window doing things in june. but more on that later. we have other places to visit.

of course, what would a trip to chicago be without at least one incident of circling around lost due to diagonal street confusion? we found this stuff while lost...

...but it makes me worry for our upcoming visit to north america's most cock-eyed town, pittsburgh.

we finally made it to renegade handmade about an hour before they closed and loaded them with new goodies. i also got to drool over their big selection of ever-new things. this wood cut by multi polar projects caught my eye this time. it's a limited run of one million, so i should just stop dragging my heels.

we stopped in on sue but tried not to bother her for too long. she's an affable lady but she was going through applications for the west coast renegade craft fairs (to which we have applied) and we were getting worn out, anyway. plus the cell phone needed to be exchanged at some grocery store way across town. that's what this is all about:

photo by rev. aitor

exhaustion + making sure the phone worked + being on hold + getting hungry + no seating.

thankfully we finally got sorted out, i was free of my dino captor and we ended our day by being treated to a home cooked meal from the incredible reba rar rar followed by drinks at the skylark, a photo booth, and a reunion with my long-time pal, noah.

a wonderful way to end a chock-full day. the food was amazing, reba!

note to selves: we can't live like this for an entire month. let's wish on the robot gods for a slower pace once we reach indiana.

midwest is best.

today we left milwaukee after some harried running around. there were pictures to take, orders to post, questions to ask, sleeping moments to extend, and new inventions to crank out. but i will get back to that in a moment.

today we bid our sad farewell to paper boat; we won't be back through here before they shut their doors at the end of the month. if you are in the area, you should check out the amazing deals they have going on some of the indie craft community's finest wares.

muffy balls by muffy


talking painting by justin richel




ohhh bama! & snarky valentines by owly shadow puppets

we also bid a less-sad farewell to faythe. do not be mistaken, we began to miss her immediately but she will still be in milwaukee when we are back through in june.

and, yes, it is true, before we left town i actually managed to finish a small run of new secret message envelopes. "i love you" - simple, obvious, needed by the world. they are up in my etsy shop now. if you like them, i would snap one up quick; my perfect envelope supply is dwindling and i may have to switch styles for future runs.

having packed up, visited and crafted we were ready to shove off back to chicago for a couple of store meetings, or so we thought. the mixture of rain, late afternoon and chicago drivers (sorry guys, you are collectively the worst and i have been everywhere) made our trip more than double in length. we gotinto town with only enough time to drop in on paper boy.

the girls discovered the joy of secret messages (very flattering at this early stage in my invention's life) and i am happy to say that the shop is now the first chicago outlet for these mysterious marvels. they picked up a good selection and a few of the newer button sets. aitor's work is also all over that place, so check them out!

we ended our day making things and watching a fantastic documentary about song poems (because our hostess, one miss emily candini, makes us way cooler than we actually are).

i love you, chicago. you wear me out but only through constant excitement, activity and support.

reunions in the dairy air.

today i was finally reunited with aitor. oh, did i not mention that he and a small contingent of the toronto pipe club had come down to a resort just outside of chicago to attend the annual chicagoland international pipe and tobacciana show? with over three hundred vendors, i really wish i had been able to go, take pictures, see the sites and report back to you, dear reader. but other obligations kept my nose to the grindstone in chicago and, given that the terrible directions i got to the convention ballooned my trip out there from one hour to three, it probably just was not meant to be. aitor surely has all kinds of stories of this cultish subsection of the handicraft world - slow smoking, the attire of the pipe nerd, overheard pipey gossip. maybe this secrets will come to light if he and his collective ever get behind the routine of writing their ideas and experiences down. we'll see.

in spite of time spent lost and confused on suburban illinois highways, the bulk today's travel was supposed to be spent going on a pilgrimage to milwaukee, to visit our friend faythe. faythe does one million things so coordinating a social visit with her has taken three years. of course, no trip from chicago to milwaukee is complete with a visit to the mars cheese castle (pictured above and below). yes, that is saturn on their logo.

we got to milwaukee with squeaky cheese curds in our tummies and warm hugs from faythe all around. we got to look around her shop, paper boat, which was a bittersweet experience given that after four years of operation, the recession finally tipped the scales and forced them to close at the end of this month. but more on that later; i am working a piece about faythe for the toronto craft alert that should go deeper into some of that information. for now, though, the shop is still open, it's perfectly curated and we felt very lucky to get to finally visit it. the final show in the gallery is a collection of mixed media drawings by handmade nation camera woman, micaela o'herlihy. it is exquisite and entirely worth a visit if you are in the area.

it is a real treat to visit with faythe in her incredibly inviting home (which did not make us feel itchy at all, as suggested by some weirdo comments here). sunshine everywhere, the largest collection of our community's art that i have ever seen in one place, open space, and fresh paint. faythe's home also boasts the holy grail of itinerant wayfarers, the spare bedroom. a dream wrapped in soft natural light!

tonight we partake in the pride of milwaukee. it could be a punishing night. i'm not sure that we have the intestinal fortitude (literally) to keep pace with 'america's drinking hole.' only time will tell.

shlemiel, shlemazel, y'all!

is chicago.

since starting this little trip, i have mostly been holed up trying to hammer out some lingering work and catching the odd improv show that my friend and host-for-the-weekend, emily, has running. so it was a great treat to get out today (cubs game and associated madness notwithstanding) and do my first shop visit. chicago comics was one of the first stores that ever carried my stuff. since this is the midwest, this makes the staff there feel like friendly distant relatives. i could say that about most of my chicago shops, really (although some owners and managers are not so distant). i guess it's just this town - or the people i have had the good fortune of happening upon within it.

all this is to say that chicago comics has a hefty new selection of loose buttons to shoot some colour and joy into your chicagoan lives.

on this visit, i also became strangely aware of the on-counter display boxes that slicker companies provide to their vendors - chicago comics carries things like small art toys, art trading cards and the like. it's very sweet that they made me my own display box out of cardboard and business cards (and, somehow, this ramshakle aesthetic seems to fit my ramshakle approach to things) but i started to feel that i should be extending that kind of service to shops like theirs. emma, be forewarned: you will be getting a call from me when we are both back in toronto for advice and guidance on this topic.

spring day in toronto.

today we went out without jackets! i just wore a light cardigan and a scarf - didn't even pull out the mittens i had put in my purse. we took transit to honest ed's (in case you were wondering about the positive financial impact of housing an art show, honest ed's, it has rekindled my appreciation of your maze-like establishment). i had plans to get some jars to help sort both our pantry and my crafting supplies. to my way of thinking, the pantry model is the most useful organizational system for any grouping of non-paper items. this applies to rolled oats, balls of angora yarn, beads and lentils.

after honest ed's, we walked all the way home with many stops between. although the reverend and i have both done longs walks like this over our cash-poor winter, they were not very comfortable. this was a change of pace - 16 degrees. in march!

along the way (we think we were on markham just north of queen), we encountered an amazing house that neither of us had seen before. it echoed a couple of detroit tourist highlights, the heidelberg project and hamtramck disneyland. but how had we never stumbled upon it before? it felt like we were on the road again in our own town (a feeling i have been looking for since returning). any information you have about this place would be avidly consumed.

we also managed a few extra errands, as any route from the annex to parkdale is littered with good places to visit. most notably, i delivered my first little bundle of buttons to type books on queen west. they have invested in some mores buttons (of the read, write and think varieties) to compliment their well selected array of interesting art and literature publications. of course, i fell in love with something after only allowing myself ten seconds of browsing. we had to leave quickly, lest my payment would not end up on my screaming credit card where it belonged. still, it is so nice to go to a book shop that is so well put together and thoughtfully filled.

in slighly sadder news, i also went to the ontario crafts council gallery to pick up my installation - it came down on sunday. it was kind of amazing to see my once glorious grid reduced to a pointy heap of nails and magnets again. i suppose i need to start hustling to make the public side of the project rise again. i also, as always, have a big backlog of envelope contributions to go through. rust never sleeps. say, does your gallery need my button project in it for a while...?

tending shop / keeping house.

i have been trying to clean up around the house. it's a daunting task when your home is also your place of work. i am also exceptionally bad at containing my creative work to my office. it's everywhere. we haven't had an operational kitchen table in months (but thank you for the loaned paper cutter, leah. it lives there now).

in all the manic tidying (which is barely perceptible), i also managed to document a few new things and get them listed in my etsy shop. secret message envelopes, neck warmers...and more is on the way.

in the world of online commerce, i should also mention a few more updates. the souvenir shop has decided to restructure their operations and has pared away many of the works they were selling online (including mine). after a year of operation, they have decided to focus on other projects (like the amazing penny smash, one would assume). i wish them all the best. those folks at motherbrand are always up to interesting new design-based things and i look forward to hearing about all the fantastic new undertaking they dream up. the confusion corner buttons will now be available through my etsy shop and, as always, at out of the blue in winnipeg.

but as one door closes, another opens. although i am very late in announcing the opening of their online storefront, renegade handmade has launched the much-anticipated cyber version of their popular chicago shop. my available button sets can be found here. it's not a bad place to pick some up, either, as sue's collection of indie craft stuff is unparalleled; one could fill a shopping cart there pretty quickly. i have always been particularly impressed by renegade handmade's collection of art and prints. it's a pretty singular grouping of artists. congratulations on the new site, sue! it looks wonderful.

i neglected to mention...

...that the entire security envelope collection (my personal one) is currently on display in the window of the workroom on toronto's queen street west. it's a simple display, using the button boards by tara broderick. i had big plans to sew all kinds of envelope strips together to display as a big curtain behind the boards. given my time constraints, this amounted to two ten foot long strips - not my original vision, but also not altogether unappealing.

things are pretty fluid with me and the workroom, so i am not sure how long this display will stay there. you'd better just go soon and check it out. there are all kinds of great events going on there all the time. for instance, i stopped in on today's quilt sunday. the next chance to loaf around there should be a stitch 'n' bitch in a couple of weeks. maybe you should go.

portland morning run-arounds.

after an early rise (for me, anyway) so that we could get to powell's right when it opened, we met with the book buys and then staggered around, overwhelmed. i actually bought nothing which was surprisingly easy when i thought of all the dribs and drabs of my father's that i already had to find ways to bring back to toronto with me.

after powell's, we went down to the little alberta street arts district to check in on some stores i had sold to there. i was sad to see imp going out of business (sadly, this is becoming a more common sight on my trips south of the border). i wish the owner, chris, all the best and hope the closing doesn't signal some greater worries. that store, and this whole neighbourhood, were places that my father and i stumbled into when we drove from vancouver to los angeles in the spring of 2006. you know, bittersweet stuff.

i did discover a newer space that had open on the strip, together gallery (pictured above). i was drawn in by the window display by ryan bubnis, which inhabited an aesthetic that made me feel i was at home looking at it.





the window is part of their current group show, waiting for the miracle, which is pretty spectacular. oh yes, there was also a terrarium in the window. feelings of home, again...



the woman behind the counter, i came to learn, was an artist named mia nolting. we got to chatting and after she handed me a survey to fill out i had a similar home-like inkling. some later internet stalking has confirmed my feelings. she's incredibly talented and seems to enjoy illustration, typography, lists, surveys and cussing...clearly there is some kindred spirit going on there.



i ended up going home with the book pictured above (by nigel peake) and a multiple choice diary that mia gave me. i love them both a lot. but am i supposed to fill in the diary and send it back to her? is this more of the same personal information hoarding that the surveys feed into? and what glorious/nefarious purpose will all this information feed into, i wonder?



i also got to visit office, one of my favorite portland shops to drool in. they always have great shows in their corner gallery and the shop has the magical feeling of being totally empty and totally full at the same time. you know...when the stuff for sale is arranged so carefully that it insinuates lots of space then when you look closer every single thing is deliberate and well chosen.



john and i then booted it out of the city and made our way home. of course, we had to make a stop in olympia on the way home to stock up dumpster values - the best store in town (and not just because they are my olympia retailer). i love that place.

and i am very thankful to john for redefining whirlwind with me and for treating me to a trip into the world and away from my worries (as much as possible, anyway). i didn't even have to drive once for the whole two days! and he went into a yarn shop with me. now that's a gift.