good and bad....

so good news first...
i sold a piece from the Forget Me Not show at Gallery Hanahou! so nice to see, really, and i wonder who its was. was it you? let me know if so... the online store is only open for another week so get your embroidery fix here. these pieces are in their shop...

and bad news...
i've put my shop on vacation for a bit. my grandfather is very sick right now, which breaks my heart. i'm so homesick and have planned a trip home ( NY to CA) to be with my family next weekend.

this brings me to the shop. i love my etsy shop. i'm always thinking about how i can grow it. when i'm not making i'm planning and thinking about it. but it takes so much time to make things right, to package orders and organize a small business out of a bedroom in a tiny brooklyn apartment. i stay up every night making/packaging/inventoring (is that a word)/ cleaning up the mess from making/ trying new designs and its killing me.

i'm a serious cry baby and it seems like i'm always working backwards. i try so hard to make things look nice. i stencil my packaging. i'll type a paper twice if it rips- three times if i have to. and it gets to the point where things that should take an hour spiral into 3. and i'm up till 2 am and have to go to work the next day. i have anxiety dreams, like i'll cut 100's of pieces of paper for books and when i'm finished i realize i've measured wrong.

i want to make this work but it is so hard and my mind is else where at the moment. i'm frustrated with the learning curve, with lack of space, with spending so much money to make things and breaking even and living paycheck to paycheck. i miss california. i want to see my family- be with my grandfather.

it makes me really sad to put my "baby" on hold because I don't know when I can come back to her. so the shop must wait, but i hope that i can come back to it refreshed and renewed....

how do you all with shops or other creative endeavors balance it all? do you have day jobs? do you want to be independent and think its a real possibility? how do you have the space to run your businesses?

making music...kinda

at this very moment, right now, i am typing on a keyboard in a gallery on 21st St. my typing, and all typing by gallery staff, is being translated into music via a player piano as part of the current exhibition for Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at Paula Cooper Gallery. i work here as an archivist and this project is especially interesting to me- because i'm in a way making music.

This is from the press release:
"This work hinges on a computer program designed by the artist that translates fragments of language typed on the gallery’s office computers into a musical score played in real-time by an acoustic piano placed in the gallery. The program isolates a set of notes, dynamics and other musical terms from the language typed on the gallery’s computers to build its ongoing score. Acting as conductor, composer, and instrumentalist all at once, the piece renders an in situ musical phenomenon that registers the labor of the gallery and plays it in song."

via xippas gallery

Céleste's work often involves music, or making music/ sound, in unique ways. In one piece, From Here to Ear, he placed electric guitars horizontally in a gallery space with little birds free to fly about. When they'd land on the guitars it would create sound.so if your in NY you should come see the show and maybe if you ask nicely they'll let you type and make the piano go blink, pling, plonk... it acutally sounds quite nice....

a thousand thank yous Update...

remember i did a give away for my 1,000th heart on etsy...well, the winner was Tracy all the way from HONG KONG! so excited to send something so far. I sent her one of my new little pieces called, Reading the Stars, a series of delicately stitched constellations.

I sent her Andromeda...

she also order a book and this image is from her blog. thank you so much Tracy!!
and...
i'm kicking myself for not bidding on this crazy great book/ lockets on the ebays.
damn you ebays- for introducing me to all the things i never knew i needed so bad.

(good) mail makes things better

this past week and last i've received some very nice mail. mail, other than bills and solicitaions, like a hand written letter or etsy treasures bring me joy. i'll already know whats in a package- i bought it- and i'll be just as excited, probable more, as if it were a gift or surprise.

well, i recently traded with Chad of the dark and beautiful etsy shop Mon Petit Fantome. we bonded over our love for Let the Right One In. he makes silhouettes of animals and imagined narratives, paintings and dreamy music under the title St. Mary's. I got two! CDs...they are beautifully packaged. i'm a sucker for wax seals and vintage imagery and beyond that the music is so nice. i listened to it here and then i interweb stalked Chad till i got my own copies. grab your own copy here sans the creep factor. thank you much Chad!
i also received this page torn from a book from my sweet friend katrina. she knows that i love the silhouettes. i made images of my family in silhouette while we were in school together. i posted some a while back here. she's far but not forgotten- thank you if you ever see this! katrina makes beautiful images of her family and home in Argentina.

via katrinadautremont.com

it's her constant project documenting her family and the images are still, full of traces of lives and longing. she has a nice website too where you can see much more...

hey decor8!

i, err, MiniatureRhino, has a mention on the lovely blog decor8 today! yeah, yeah after my last post maybe i'm showing off, but i'm like a little kid with a new nintendo- this shit is exciting to me! it's a bit of validation during some stressful times. i've been kinda down lately. Family troubles that i won't burden you with and very stressed about trying to make my little business grow. i want more than my day job can give me, but i literally can't stitch fast enough to keep up. i want to do this so bad and i'm just not sure how, but I'm trying everyday....find decor8 and the post i'm included in, Etsy Take Five Tuesdays, here

via decor8 (via photographs taken in my bedroom)

i like the images they choose and how they arranged them...

Hey Heart Handmade!

oh, i just saw a post on Heart Handmade, run by Marichelle, about my Message in a Bottle Letter Service. really exciting! and i just sold my first one last night... yay! many thanks to Marichelle! check out the blog and her shop!

...and look at these amazing little houses she is making. they are called House Rules as each has a rule to live by like, "HOUSE RULE NO. 13: "don't hate the player, hate the game!" so. good. i just made a little house stamp for a custom banner order, so i'm all about tiny homes right now....

Flickr finds...

from the flickr group, Curiosity Cabinet- Handmade Specimens. i'm always watching out for their picks and these collage works by Alexis Anne Mackenzie are just the kind of thing i like. nature imagery, vintage papers, scientific study and time consuming obsessive detail work. i'm especially interested in the bizarre twists and turns the images make, between iconic image a strange narrative. find lots more of alexis's work here on her flickr and blog....

Quake

Unnatural Disasters I

Lady Liberty & Old Glory

Plants Promised Me: White Baneberry; Snakeroot

Orchid Hand (gold)