My Creative Space

It's been five years since I've had a job interview. You know how they always ask you your greatest weakness? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and the true answer is, thank you cards.

Case in point. My great and wonderful friend, Rachel, first grade teacher extraordinaire, not only baked the most delicious cup cakes for my birthday, but also gifted me one of the most perfect gifts ever. These Boylan glasses are venn diagrams of perfection.

They are vintage. They are brightly colored in my favorite colors. They are upcycled (they used to be the actual bottles that you buy Boylan soda in! AND while I hate almost all soda, I would trip that lady in the building at job-job that stares at me like a little crocodile bird for a Boylan Root Beer on a hot day, OK...let's be honest,  I'd trip her anyway.) These gorgeous glasses perfectly match my 1950s kitchen, and I love everything that matches my 1950s kitchen. They are in a word: wonderful.

I am making an attempt at righting a very wrong, my weakness to send thank you notes.  So I am making one! I declare that it will be so spectacular that I will be forgiven the long months that have spanned since my par-tay! 

Well, at least I hope it will.

Here is how I am starting.
I am shutterbugging
my lovely gift x 4.etc.

NOW I WILL DIGITAL IT! Then I will sketchy, sketchy, sketchy it!

It is time to color it!

Next I print it!


Now I pull out this magical tool! I Score Pal it!

Fold, and we've gone full circle. Time to Shutterbug it! 

WOOT! Now to stamp it... I am going to report to you when it's in the mail. I need that level of accountability.  Afterall, it's not easy overcoming weakness. 

My Creative Space

It seems like this will be the year of 100 costumes. My coworkers and I are all going as sick-o versions of the eight-year-old I animate. I'm doing this one up goth. Tonight I've got a seventies costume party and a gig in SoHo. Tomorrow we pull out the stops.

So here I am, cozied up with an iron and a ream of freezer paper:

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin."
-Linus Van Pelt

Meet Ralph-O-Lantern.


April and I decorated this slammin' but shiny pumpkin this week. I would have loved to cut his face open with a sharp serrated blade but getting his top off was hard enough. Ralph is the picture of modesty. Also it would seem he's made of wood. I've never met a pumpkin so hard to crack. This man is an island.

Trick or Treat to see more great creative space at Kirsty's Space.

listening to right this second: "Ashes & Wine" -- A Fine Frenzy

My Creative Space

I have a meeting lined up this afternoon at Sweet Melissa's where we will discuss the stuff that's currently being drawn here:

I bought new pencils at Utrecht to celebrate this new contract. I love any excuse for new art supplies. Last night on my way out for dinner, a movie (The September Issue) and a party in Clinton Hill I dragged my friend into the art store as we walked by. "Why are you buying this stuff!?" she wailed... "It's going to bulk up your purse!!!"
--"I know!" I answered, pure glee in my voice. She rolled her eyes but deigned to join me. Yay for good friends and new pencils!

P to the S: It's unlikely that you have The September Issue playing in your neighborhood if you're not NYC or major city based, but please reserve it on your Netflix Queue. It gave me such a shot in the arm. It's a raw look at the sacrifices we make to live our best creative lives. There were moments it took my breath away.

I loved 'The Devil Wears Prada' and was pretty sure that it would be the closest I'd ever see to what Anna Wintour was really like, as the movie didn't exactly make me want to run out and sign up to work for Vogue.

I would be hard pressed to explain the importance that Vogue's photographic spreads have had in my personal creative life. The brilliance of Grace Coddington has always driven me to push my own very different work harder. I waited so long to see this film because a was a little afraid. I was worried that I'd come away from it not liking Grace's personality and regretting that I ruined some innocence I had about her work which always, always, stands for itself. Instead I came away from it loving her more that I thought possible.

Grace holds her own so beautifully and fights for the creative good so winningly. It's so easy to identify with her and to see her soul that she so epicallly breathes into her work. I left with a bit of a soft spot for Anna too...but she is hard as nails and you can see how that's important too.

OK. Enough gushing from me. See this movie. Even if you're one of my blog stalkers who isn't a creative. This movie is about sacrifices for a common good even if it is the common good of fashion. It's about relationships and compromises and not giving up too.

So here's your homework: Run to see more great creative space at Kirsty's Space.
Netflix "The September Issue" so you have it when it hits dvd, I know I will.

listening to right this second: "Bleeding Love" -- Leona Lewis

My Creative Space

You know that book, 'If you give a Pig a Pancake'? --far superior to 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' -- To your right you'll see photograpic evidence of 'If You in a Moment of Weakness Share Your Watercolors with a Five Year Old.'

You can see more great creative space at Kirsty's Space.