program cover for artwalkravenswood2008
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

I cannot *believe* this is already next weekend!

Amy, Andy & I went over to pick up our chairs and promo material, maps, etc. Looking at this map, I have to say it is way more organized than in the past, and more studios are participating, which is really great to see :)

The chairs, in case you're wondering, are to be decorated by studios that are on the map - They're to mark you as a trolley/walking stop for visitors. We can do whatever we want with them in terms of decorating - But I was surprised to learn that they aren't to be auctioned off. Granted, the chairs need some repair, but it all seems minor, and once they're prettied up, especially by all the artists, I bet they'd fetch at least up to $50 each for an organization. Maybe next year.

Pre-cleaning studio shots & pre-decorated chair shots coming up!

-Nancy

scrambling.

eat.shop.portland
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

The owner of Elsa + Sam sent over this lovely compact book that her shop and some of our work was featured in - It came in the mail yesterday. Which made me realize something.

This is not something I like to complain about, because I know we're fortunate enough to even be able to complain about it: I don't like having to hunt around for press bits. I love when people send me images, links, whatever. We have Google alerts on all forms of our names, both personal & business, which helps tremendously when we get blogged - But there are times when we just can't get the info online, and those are frustrating times. This happens a lot with print media.

So yesterday we had the annual One of a Kind Show Artist's Advisory Board meeting, and Andy & I know most of the artists that are there, or at least know of them (you can see the artists work here at Orange Beautiful's blog post about the meeting). Our friend Carl Vogtmann comes walking in, and after some catching up, he mentions that he saw us in the paper.

"We were in the paper? Which paper? What about? Was I dressed?" So Carl couldn't remember which one, but it had something to do with Renegade, and Joan Ulrich, Sr. VP of Marketing for the Mart, started to do a search on it.

Not a thing came up. "We have all the papers - We'll see if anything comes up later" is what Joan says to me with a smile. I think she noticed my dismay at nothing coming up in a search.

And still today, I can't find anything. We called a supplier today, out in Northbrook, and even he made a comment to Andy about having heard of us, and oh yeah, it was in the paper.

"which paper?" Andy asked
"The Trib, I think - Or the Sun Times," the guy says.

Argh! So frustrating. So the library and some good ol' hard copies are in my plans for later this evening. Library stays open till 9pm :)

-Nancy

The magic of amigurumi.

Andy & I are followers of the Church of [Adult Swim], and tonight as I was checking their website for new news bites of future offerings, their splash page had this kick-ass Metalocalypse amigurumi set:
I do love me some clever amigurumi.

-Nancy

just because I can, post.

large bowl honeybee with pear on the side
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

So I finally got around to listing a couple of large bowls on Etsy, and I have to say, it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, including adding objects for scale - Which is good, because I cannot bare disrupting the image with a coin, or a ruler - I often cringe when I have to add pencils, or even the fruit you see here (fabulous fake fruit!)

Photographing these larger pieces can be a chore, especially because our sweep is only so long and wide, and often times my lighting is way off (thank you dearly Photoshop).

Anyway, I'm trying to list as much as I can now, because cleaning the studio usually knocks me offline for a few days - Especially since I plan on cleaning out the computers as well, hardware and software-wise :)
Get that Shop Vac ready! (I am so totally serious about that btw, that's how we cleaned out our oldest computer, a Sony - It's 6 years old! We're careful though :) )

So soon, I'll be posting before images of our space in all of it's icky glory - We're planning on adding a few new areas to display our collection of work from fellow Etsyans and other local artists; it's something we've been meaning to work on for awhile now - It's one of those 'when we get a chance' projects. And it all depends on whether or not I get certain areas cleared and cleaned off.

And Friday, Amy, Andy & I are running over to a place called Angel Sales just down the street to have a quickie informative meeting with the Art Walk Ravenswood people, to pick up posters, maps, and our chairs, which we're to decorate and use as "stop here!" markers outside our building for the trolley...I still haven't figured out what we're going to do with our chair. Maybe we'll glue all the tabs and magnets that aren't quite right onto it - Of course, it would be too heavy to move once we were done with it :) Dilemma, dilemma!

-Nancy

and on that note...

crowd on day 1
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

Renegade was the last outdoor event of the year for us (phew!), and I want to briefly say that what a fantastic crowd of people! I know, it was pouring rain non-stop (in degrees of course: drippy, then downpour, etc) but look at that image above - People were out, they were game, and they were interested. Gotta love the diy/indie show crowd :)
Had this been an art festival, it would have cleared out in a heartbeat.

On a side note - If anyone reading this purchased something from us on Saturday @ Renegade, could you contact us please? Our credit card machine got wet (surprise, surprise) and we lost all the transactions on that day (we contacted a few people already, but are missing a few more).

Let's see...Our last few festivals prior to Renegade went really well. Starving Artists' Show in Milwaukee was great (crowd pic below) - Had a lot of younger customers, all of whom we told about Art vs. Craft show in November, also in Milwaukee (we just got notification last week, and we're in - Yay!)

Bucktown Arts Fest was great, Northalsted Market Days went surprisingly well. So all in all, we feel pretty good about this past season.

And now, we're getting ready for our open studio weekend on October 4th + 5th, which we've decided to have the same weekend as Ravenswood Art Walk, part of the Chicago Artists Month series of studio tours. Andy & I were both pleasantly surprised to hear that this year, our building was actually going to be organized in it's approach.

As many of you may or may not know, our studio is located within a building that is a block long, and half a block wide. There are approximately 400 small businesses operating within, and out of those, only 7 can be deemed 'arts oriented'. In the past, whenever the art walk was looming, we'd try to get something going - But it's difficult to get a few people walking through a building where there are only a few pockets of art activity. Often people would just walk by because it didn't look like anything was going on in here.So anyway, this year, our building will host about 100 artists (part of the layout is above), all displaying their work throughout the building. There's also going to be a Ravenswood Art Trolley taking people back and forth, from Lawrence to the north, to Cornelia to the south. We're happy to be participating and are looking forward to all the activity - Should be interesting :)

What else...We have our event schedule worked out, and we'll be posting that soon. We'll also be sending some tiles out to a show put on by the Clay Studio, out in Philly, for the holidays - I'll post more info about that later. They asked us earlier in the year, so we've been planning some designs for it - We're making about 35 tiles for them and sending 25. It'll be a good batch of clay!

And I think I forgot to mention that we do have some stores carrying our work now! These brave people ordered from us, not an easy task. I say this because we do not have 'line sheets'. I tried to make something simple by making up 3 categories: shape, colour, image. I send out these PDFs, and then cross my fingers!
The shops that carry our work here in Chicago are homeboy & sacred art; in Portland, OR we have Elsa + Sam. I can honestly say that they've all been a pleasure to work with and incredibly patient, especially because of event schedule.

What else...We'll be cleaning our studio soon next week for the Art Walk/ Open Studio Weekend. It's quite the pit of disrepair if you catch my meaning. I'll probably put up another 'before and after' shot on Flickr, so you can see how awful it is in here!

Ok, that's it - I know I'm missing a bunch of newsworthy tid bits, but I'm blanking out on what they are - Sorry! If I do think of them, I'll write about it here :)

Thanks for reading, and I promise to not leave such a gap next time between postings!

-Nancy