spooky times in pennsylvania.

hallowe'en must be fast approaching. look that the spooky hand print that appeared in our pile of new linens at our motel. you can call it filth, but i call it a haunting. i noticed it last night, right before we went to do our laundry in town.

while our clothes were drying, the lady at the laundromat took us out back to listen to a weird screaming she has been hearing late every night. um...i have to say, it was pretty scary.



today when we went into town, aitor got a haircut. he said it ended with his entire head being vacuumed. i wasn't there to witness this, so i can't corroborate, but he looked pretty shaken.

as we were walking around the shops and antiqueries of the main drag, we also stumbled upon this:





terrifying stuff. just who is filling this town with so much grease, anyway? in truth, bedford is a very nice and pretty little town. i failed to get good pictures of their amazing gulf station, but i will see why i can do tomorrow. until then...





we even visited a small independent office supply store a couple of days ago and scored a big haul of old dymo tapes. they had a whole bunch of old office stuff that has clearly been sitting there since the 50's - 70's. my kind of dream.

but back to the bathroom (or as we like to call it, "the kitchen"). i will leave you with an image below of the tools we are toting in an attempt to avoid destroying the entire planet in our wake. i will say, trying to be ecologically minded is a profound challenge when living as leeches off gas station food.

multiples.

i like things fitting into sets. as i've had this little bit of time to catch up on my work, i've also been catching up on my documentation and archiving. the image above is from my flickr account. i made a set for all the neck warmers i had crocheted and saw this whole grid of the 42 finished pieces today as i was busily sorting. last year, i hoped to make 100 but had to stop when i realized i was spending all my time crocheting and not getting other things done. it's hard to get out of the habit when one picks up the hook.

i also spent some time today trying to document the security envelopes buttons i have become so enthralled in making. after my big score of envelopes in st. louis, i have really had to rein in my desire to make more and more of these buttons. every once in a while, i allow myself to make 100 and just stare at them for a moment...or ten moments.

after some serious field studying last night, i am pretty confident in the identification of at least eighty different designs in a host of harmonizing colourways (do they plan this? or are the colours of security just inherently harmonious?)







i have been toying with notions of translating this unstoppable obsession from crafty goodness into larger more art-world installations. i get scared of 'big art' (well, making it, not viewing it) but think that i finally found a project that excites me and makes sense to my art-brain. to this end (ramping up and feeding my obsession to artistic ends), i am now willing to offer you some free gifts in exchange for used security envelopes. that's right, i will send you a set of security envelopes buttons in exchange for a contribution of old security envelopes from you. if anyone from overseas reads this, i am particularly interested in what wild foreign envelopes might be out there and especially implore you to send me some.

if this strikes your fancy, just email me for shipping info and we can get rolling!

it's a pretty good deal, eh? you send me garbage and i send you other non-garbage stuff.

some rules (for what is life without them?):
1. only used or otherwise unusable (ie. pre-addressed) envelopes. this is a project of reuse.
2. no logos or words. i have found some companies put their logo inside their envelopes. i have deemed these unacceptable for this project.

[edit: december 6, 2008: i have reached my 100 respondent limit and suspended this call for submissions. there is a collecting phase two coming, though. read more here.]

hotel canzine and my broken pencil pictorial profile.

this just in from broken pencil headquarters in toronto: an little interview i did a while back has been translated into the back page pictorial profile in the upcoming issue of the magazine.

this issue, by the way, is being released on sunday in concurrence with broken pencil's annual hotel canzine, a zinester assault that descends of toronto like no other indie lit event. they take over the bulk of the galdstone hotel for a day and cram every possible inch with indie fun. this year's event also includes comedy performances by some real talents like levi macdougall and kathleen phillips.

this year's fall issue focuses on the canadian indie comedy scene (my erstwhile home turf), so the issue is full of articles and interviews about/with some of my favorite people. i have no idea what the pictorial will be like except that it has been done by a woman named claire manning. after perusing her website, i think i am in good hands. now i just have to hope that i didn't say a bunch of stupid things.

lindsay (broken pencil's editor) says that the pictorial will be up on their website sunday but feel free to report back on you impression if you see it beofre i do. and get off your tushies and go down to canzine. i am so sad i can't attend this year. it's the most overwhelming fun you'll ever have.

oh, yes...the front counter at the gladstone also houses a little gallery of goods from the souvenir shop. you can see if my confusion corner buttons are there and/or peruse the other earthly good on display.

thrift america.

photos by rev. aitor

so, up there is my attempt to collude with my sweetie to take pictures of the quilt top i got for $5 in south carolina. it was my big score of the trip. i am going to have to consult with my friend jen on fabric dating (i think dirty 30's, but she can set me right). oh, yes - these photos were also designed to tap into jen's fabric fetishist jealousies (but not too hard). it's kind of a weird quilt. or rather, it's a normal one with two extra rows sloppily added to one end, the top in this photo. i've been trying to figure out what to do with it. some compatriots of mine pull these apart to make smaller things for the lovely fabrics. but i am a little clingy about old things, so i think i am going to take those extra rows off, use the fabrics for other things and actually quilt up the rest. here is a detail of some of the fabrics used:

i'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

we actually left the motel today to do some getting out. we did visit a local thrift shop where we encountered (but - shockingly - did not purchase) this little gem:



if you look closely, you will note that the hotdog is full of little holes. we tried to figure out it's clearly specific function. there's only a small hole in the bottom so it can't be packed full of much; it could house incense sticks, but that didn't seem to match the themes (or related themes) of hotdogs or america, - it would also be a lot of incense; and then it occurred to me - sparklers! what could make your picnic more patriotic than a hotdog shooting a million sparks? god bless america. pass the beer mustard.

speaking of beer mustard, this is a new product we discovered at this discount grocery (and canned goods) store we found in town here. it is a penny pincher's godsend if navigated correctly (read the labels - how can frozen crab cakes contain 'less than 2% crab meat'?) that said, i did find myself totally confounded when i stumbled into the soda aisle today...



...closer...



there's a huge version here, if you want to explore all the glory. but bunch? crisp? mountain holler? dr. pop? patch? tubz? have any of you heard of any of these? it felt like i had stepped into a twilight zone reality where only one thing was different and nobody much cared.

tending shop from a pennsylvania motel room.

with our little factory in full swing - packaging orders, answering belated emails, putting stock together for craftland, making some new stuff for sister missy - i have managed to release some new stuff to you, the internet.

those toofs buttons up there are now lighting up my etsy shop. one's white, one's gold and one's wooden! i feel a little chuffed with the gold one because it sparkles. that's pretty cutting edge in my tiny world view.

now that i am on a shop keeping tear, i should probably also mention the blue house and my shop therein. come to think of it, there are a few reasons i should be directing interested parties there instead of the etsy shop for purchasing my goods.
1) it's toronto-based and dripping with local indie culture.
2) item listings maintain their urls, so the links don't die when something sells.
3) i don't pay fees there and thus more pennies come into my grubby paws.

for the record, the trampoline hall comic zine can be found there, the toofs buttons and plenty more. and those links will stay good until i run out of stock entirely. i will be working to get my corner of the blue house tidied up over this week. as i do, i suggest you poke around the rest of the site. it's full of neat-o stuff, a lot of which is made by people i know and condone. the webmaster/designer, shaw-han, has also brilliantly integrated mp3 uploads into the music listings. fairly singular, i say.

okay, enough bragging and chatting about myself and how you can give me money. off to make more buttons and watch television shows about forensic pathologists.

homeless housekeeping.

photo by dusty parr

well, i've had some major catching up to do. i'd also like to send some blanket apologies out to anyone i have disappeared on in the past week and a bit. i've had some personal stuff on the go that has really diverted a lot of my energies. hopefully all will be well and mellow out as we really get into the crazy-manic holiday season.

but back to the updates; pictured above are my mainstay mores buttons, which have been selected by brand new online shop madison belle to be featured in their accessory section. it's a pretty time burgling online shop and i would like to wish its proprietress, brooke, the deepest of congratulations for her big grand opening.

as our little handmade world grows and grows up, i am finding it very nice to watch these various niches being carved out of the online ether (check out other online pals, goodegg, souvenir shop, and shana logic to see the scope of where craftiness can take a person). there is also talk among the bulrushes that renegade handmade is fixin' to launch an online version of their store. i, for one, am pretty stoked about that as they have one of the best collections of art prints i have ever encountered in one place...to my taste, anyway.

after just a few days shy of a year, i also managed to get a listing up in my etsy shop for the trampoline hall comic zine. this 66 page tome was drawn in an evening by a whole heap of top notch comix artists in an attempt to document an evening at toronto-based lecture series trampoline hall through comics. i then printed and assembled everything in one week for last year's hotel canzine. i will not be able to attend canzine this year (although i am possibly interviewed in their upcoming issue), so this online zine offering will have to suffice. and really, i only put it together and did some stamping and doodles. i'm much more in awe of the artists who contributed. see...







(in order, art by rev. aitor; kathryn & stuart immonen; and shannon gerard)

unflattering moments caught on tape.

so, word has come to us through the information super highway that the segment aitor interviewed for on cbs sunday morning aired two days ago. we were not alerted by production staff which is why you all were not notified - and why we did not see the segment. instead, we spent sunday morning at a drive-in flea market in latrobe, pennsylvania, in ignorant bliss of aitor's fifteen minutes (or fifteen seconds as the case may be). we were also living in a tree room that traded charm for internet access. so thank you very much to our lovely pals at something's hiding in here for blogging about aitor's flash of infamy. and to everyone else who alerted us to the airing - melissa, stephanie, lish, mayte. nobody actually taped the thing, did you? we are still trying to hunt down a copy from the folks at cbs.

pictured above is the portrait aitor ended up doing of the correspondent, mo rocca. and pictured below are some images greedily stolen from the fine folks at something's hiding in here (in order - aitor's unflattering rendition of the cbs sunday morning logo, his portrait of mo rocca and his own cute face). double thanks, guys! we will invade your home for real sometime soon.







ps - if you are looking for the good reverend himself or his collective, the misanthrope specialty co., they have a website and a shiny new etsy shop.

pps - for those who have asked, we have not located any clips online. but thank you for asking. and let us know if you all find anything.