Shows! Shows! Shows!

July is the season for Indie Craft Shows! We have got a number of shows coming up, and we'd love to see you there.

RENEGADE SAN FRANCISCO
This is such a great show and it is a local one for us. We LOVE it! There is always a great turn out of vendors and customers. San Francisco has got to be one of the greatest, creative, alternative, super-cool, cities in the US. We are always excited about this show!

Saturday and Sunday
July 9th and 10th
11:00 am to 7:00 pm
Fort Mason Center Festival Pavillion
San Francisco, CA
www.renegadecraft.com/san-francisco

Other vendors that are going to be there include:
* Row Boat Press (one of our faves!)
* ARCHICRAFT
* Bug Under Glass
* Lerf Ewe
* R&L Goods


BAZAAR BIZARRE SF at THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
This is one of the most fun events that we do. It is located inside the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and combines the fun of the museum, unique, handmade crafts and adult night life. All of the exhibits are open, there is a live band and there are 40 indie crafters there selling their wares. It is part of the Academy's Nightlife series and is for 21 and up.

Thursday
July 14th
Academy of Sciences
San Francisco, CA
www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife


RENEGADE LOS ANGELES
Last year was our first experience at Renegade Los Angeles and it was SO MUCH FUN! It is outdoors! It is on the grass! We spent both days in bare feet! It was unbelievable. The weather was nice, the park was beautiful, the crowd was FUN! We can't wait to do it again.

Last year the TV show Parenthood bought some items for their set. They have already ordered another item this year, how fun is that?!?

Saturday and Sunday
July 16th and 17th
11:00 am to 7:00 pm
Los Angeles State Historic Park
Los Angeles, CA
www.renegadecraft.com/los-angeles


UNIQUE LA
This will be our first time at Unique LA, we hear that it is a great event and are excited to be participating in it this year. It is in Santa Monica, how could it not be great? It costs $10 to get in, but you get free drinks! And, lots of other stuff too, free swag, a free photobooth and more.

Saturday and Sunday
July 30th and 31st
Barker Hangar
Santa Monica, CA
http://www.uniquela.com/

Maker Faire 2009

I participated in this years Maker Faire as a vendor for the first time. This show was actually my debut as Tiny Sparks Design and I made my very first sale at 10:10 Saturday morning.

I have been working hard to get everything together for this show without any solid ideas as to what was going to happen. I didn't know if I was making too much or too little inventory, if my prices were set right and which designs would be popular if any, etc., etc. I had no clue. I was really hoping that I was creating work that would be enjoyed by others. Something worthwhile.

A few weeks ago I purchased a lovely pile of locally harvested wood from a very small lumber mill north of San Francisco. I came back with Elm and Oak and Chinquapin. All beautiful and really nice to work with. While milling up the boards I have been listening to a lot of great music at silly volume after the neighbors at my studio have gone home. I have been designing at home late at night when I am too tired to sand any more boards, and burning new screens in my son's room in the morning while he sleeps in our bed. In the last few days I built my booth and my displays for the show.

I have really enjoyed all the work I have been putting in.

On Friday I arrived with a van packed with stuff. I imagined that there was going to be a rush of vendors setting up and that it might be a bit of a competition for allotted space. I think I was the fourth person to show up and it felt like an empty room for most of the day really. All the experienced vendors just breeze in at the last minute. Boom. Done. I was there all day.

Once the event started there was a nonstop flow of people. Ten hours straight on Saturday and eight on Sunday. All of it was fantastic. The crowd was incredibly enthusiastic and nice and a lot of them were giving me money. Way beyond my expectations. One buyer tipped me! What? I didn't want the days to end. I refused eat or take a break, seriously pissing my wife off. Part of that may be due to control issues but really it was all tremendously exciting and encouraging. I came back to my shop this morning with a lot of empty boxes.

Work in Progress

I was in the shop the other day, working on some new pieces and I thought I'd take some pictures of my process. After the boards are cut to size, I often hand-plane them to get a smooth, even surface before I sand them, screen print them and finally put finish on them.



I am really happy to be using color in my work and I can't use an ink until I have messed around and mixed it a bit.



These boards are in process. They have a single screenprint of dark brown on them and are drying, they will be printed with 2 more colors before they are done.




This is a finished piece that has metallic gold leaves. They are really hard to photograph well but when you see them in person there is a quality to the ink that is really great. This is a 3 color screen print, I used a metallic gold, a blue that I mixed and the stitching is a nice shade of red.




I misprinted on this one and I ended up using a hand plane to remove it. It's a nice option to have as opposed to a mistake on a t-shirt or piece of paper. This one was one of the silver metallic inks, which made for some really beautiful shavings.




Here is a completed board of the leaves in red and gold on solid birch. It measures 7-1/4" tall by 23-1/2" wide. There are keyhole slots in the back so you can hang it on the wall. I love how the wood grain really stands out in this piece. It is almost like leaves falling in the water. Each board is different so you get different wood grain patterns, I think this one is quite nice.

Has the Blog Bandwagon left yet?

Hello. Usually my adoption of a technology signals it's impending demise but let's suspend our cynicism and get this going.