an army of lovers cannot fail!

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basic teewomen's teev-neck unisexwomen's v-necktank tophoodie

so this just happened. (click any picture and it will take you to the order page.)

i’ve been wanting to make a shirt with this phrase for many years but just never got around to it. this year, i finally have both the time and the motivation – i’m broke and i really want to go to fest! so here it is.

i’ve posted several pics of the different types of shirts that are available, just so you know there’s a wide variety. and a few styles even go up to 3XL in size. the color of the shirts will vary slightly from brand to brand and style to style, but generally they will all be a light grey/silver colored shirt, with black and red type in a distressed stencil style font. the shirts will be silkscreened professionally and i think will look better than anything i could print up at home.

as for the backstory… the concept of “an army of lovers” is attributable to plato in ancient greek times. the phrase “an army of lovers cannot fail” was adopted by activists in the early gay and women’s liberation movements and used widely, and rita mae brown popularized “an army of lovers shall not fail” in her poem “sappho’s reply” in the early 1970s. it’s something that has often been said in workerville amongst my family/tribe of womyn at the michigan womyn’s music festival and so, what with the whole summer of love feeling of fest these days i figured it was time for this shirt to appear.

i almost put a women’s symbol (with or without a fist) into the design but ended up deciding i’d rather leave it more universal, since it was a battlecry for the early queer and women’s movements, therefore hopefully making its appeal more widespread.

i humbly thank everyone for their support ahead of time. for the past several years since i started the pet business i haven’t really been creating art or designing anything, and i’ve really missed it. so i set an intention a few months back that i wanted more free time in my schedule so that i could get back to doing more creative stuff.. and lo and behold, several of my pet clients moved on and freed up some time in my schedule. so i’ve been working hard to get back into the creative swing of things… and designing tshirts is one of those things!! so i appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm and feedback and support – more than you’ll ever know.

ok.order away here: http://teespring.com/armyofloverscannotfail

we’re in the fucking woods! again!!

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ok folks. it’s that time again.

i’ve gotten several queries about whether i was going to print these again or not. and yes, i am, due to popular demand! as usual, i am only going to hand-print these on easy-to-acquire hanes or fruit of the loom mens ribbed a-tanks – because i don’t have to work very hard to find them in town readily and i really don’t have the time to figure out anything else. if this shirt style doesn’t work for you, just hang on… when i get a minute to breath i’m going to work up another teespring campaign and offer the design on tshirts and other items too, since that’s much harder for me to manage printing at home. but i’m going ahead and putting up the paypal button here for the tanks, for those who’d like the traditional style. (i will also mention it helps me more if you order here as the reason i do this is to help fund my time in the woods and i make more $$ on the ones i print myself. but i know lots of folks want shirt styles i can’t offer so i’m going to do the teespring campaign to make everyone happy!)

wereinthefuckingwoods

 

so. hit “buy it now” and it will take you to a paypal checkout page. sadly, paypal’s buttons no longer work with wordpress to specify sizing so the only way i could do this was to have it be for ONE tank plus shipping. if you want more than one, just email me what you want and i can invoice you individually for it. (or i guess you can always just go through and make several orders and i can refund you the excess shipping charges.)

i will leave this up probably for about a week and then i will close pre-ordering and acquire shirts and print sometime next week so i can get them in the mail well before long crew leaves.

thanks everyone for the support and your continuing enjoyment of this silly tshirt. it makes me smile every time i see one of you in it either in person or in pictures. and stay tuned as i have another fest-related shirt idea i will be running in the next coupla weeks and hopefully bringing with me to fest to sell.

UPDATE 6/29/14: i have taken the paypal button down. if you still want a shirt, email me or leave a comment here and we can talk about it. i have 1-2 of each size  (small through 2xl) extra that i am planning on bringing to fest to sell at the worker craft sale but if you want one before then, we can work something out.

last night a brass band saved my life…

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my latest creative obsession has been working on this tshirt design to use on the website teespring.com – a crowdfunding tshirt print-on-demand site. don’t worry, it’s no cafe press. these shirts get silkscreened by actual silkscreen printers (humans!) and the quality is so much better than cafe press or other similar digital print-on-demand sites. and the twist is, it’s crowdfunded, so sort of like pre-ordering – it only gets printed if enough pre-orders are made. you set your own goals for each design and your level of profit, per shirt, then varies based on your goal. and there’s no upfront expense to the creator, except the labor that goes into designing it. you can use their very easy-to-use online design tool, or you can upload your own graphics.

for this design, i chose to upload my own graphic, because i’m very interested in retaining creative control over this slogan and tshirt design. so i had to teach myself adobe illustrator in order to figure out how to make a vector graphic (!). it took a little while, but i think i got it now.

and so the result is this:

Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 1.43.03 PM

 

you can see the campaign here: http://teespring.com/lastnightabrassbandsavedmylife. several different styles and brands of shirts and a few different colors – hopefully something for everyone.

and she’s back!

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look what i did last weekend!!

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and the best part? i sold all three within a few hours of posting them up on facebook, twitter and/or instagram!

mind you, these were all half-finished projects staring me down in the shed for over a year. it didn’t take all that much to get them finished and ready for sale. but it is movement… out of the rut i’ve been in for the past little while. and so i am celebrating that hopefully i am getting my groove back.

all it took was 3 hours out at jazzfest last friday (thank you alice and jen for making that free ticket happen!), wandering around all the artists’ booths in congo, louisiana folk life, and contemporary areas, seeing all the amazing and beautiful artwork out there. and hearing some awesome music. and eating some yummy food. and hanging out with wonderful friends. and just celebrating and honoring my anniversary with new orleans – since it was jazzfest that basically convinced me that new orleans was the home i had always yearned for but never had before i stepped foot on its shifting, swampy soil. yep, my 24th anniversary with new orleans was this jazzfest (i really don’t count the years i was away due to katrina – my heart was still here) and well, it delivered quite a lovely anniversary present to me: i got a little creative spark back.

so stay tuned. hopefully lots more to come!

we’re in the fucking woods! shirts…

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ok, so years ago i first stencilled and then eventually made a screen to print up tanks and t’s with the saying “we’re in the fucking woods!” it’s hard to explain to folks who don’t go to the annual michigan womyn’s music festival, but, well, the reader’s digest version is that the festival is a camping music fest, a week long, in a very remote national forest in the middle section of michigan, close to the lake. it’s beyond rustic. cell phones don’t work there. people who live in the area are still on dial-up and there’s no internet access while at the fest. all concerts and events happen in big circus-style tents. there’s a lot of dirt and grass and nature. you are living in a tent and showering outdoors. it is an exceptionally low-tech experience… largely built with wood. most who attend find it a really wonderful escape from the wired reality of our daily lives.

but some find it challenging. you just simply can’t expect all the creature comforts of home. we are really winging it out there in the woods. we get creative. we make due with what we’ve got and can rig up. so as workers, over the years, it became a saying, often made in response to a situation where something isn’t as it is or doesn’t work the way it does out in the “real” world. “we’re in the fucking woods!”, ya know?

so anyways… i first cut a stencil and spray painted these one year to help subsidize my weeks spent in the woods as a volunteer worker (we don’t get paid, it’s just a work exchange where we are fed and don’t have to pay for a ticket in exchange for 8 hours a day of sweaty work). and then i made a silkscreen the next year and printed them up and offered them on my etsy site and at fest, again to help pay for my travel and time lost not working. but the last year i made them (can’t remember when it was – it’s been some years) i probably actually lost money making them, anticipating i would sell a lot more than i did and spending a lot of time customizing styles/brands/colors, etc. for gals. so i just stopped making them cuz i kinda felt like they were “over.” and then, well, i stopped making everything for a few years. and actually missed fest in 2011. (i went back in 2012 but did not sell any wares at all.)

and though i am again missing fest this year due to a multitude of personal, health and financial reasons, all of a sudden the demand for these shirts is high again. so due to intense peer pressure via facebook and in the hopes of making some money that i can spend restocking art supplies like spray paint, acrylic paint, brushes, exacto knives/blades, mylar for stencils, screen printing ink, etc. to get my art life going again, i have agreed to print some up.

this time, however, i will be taking pre-orders so that i don’t print up way more than i can sell.

wereinthefuckingwoods

[paypal button removed so i can finish printing what’s already been ordered – will put the button back when i’m caught up and can take more orders.]

the little paypal button above has a drop-down menu. the first option is whether you want it shipped to fest (if you are a worker and will be leaving before you think i can ship it to you at home) or whether you want it shipped to your home (for short crew who have enough time or for festies who definitely have enough time).

if you are only ordering ONE shirt, then use the second drop down menu to pick the size. if you want to order more than one shirt and pay for it at the same time, you have to go ahead and just pick a size and shipping option, hit the “buy now” button, and it takes you to a paypal page where you can input quantity. put in how many shirts you are purchasing at once and don’t worry about the size listed – once you log into paypal or go to the purchase page, it gives you the option of adding comments to the seller and there you can explain to me what sizes you want your multiple shirts to be. (or you can just shoot me an email and tell me – the important thing is for the quantity to be right when the transaction goes through so you pay the right amount.)

(and if this is all too complicated or confusing for you, just email me and i can invoice you separately if you need me to.)

fyi, right now, i’m only going to print them on hanes ribbed white a-tanks, to make it easy and fast. i *might* entertain the idea of printing them on something else later but for now, cuz i’m trying to accomodate long crew workers who are leaving in the next few days (or have already left), i’m just doing the a-tanks. IF you are a worker and order one, i can send them up in bulk next week with a list and deuce in inventory said she’d handle disseminating them. you can just check in with her and she’ll know you’ve already paid for it. if you are a festie, there should be plenty of time for me to ship them to you directly next week and have them get there in time, so i’m gonna do $5 for priority shipping which i know isn’t probably enough to actually cover priority shipping but it makes it an even $20 so i’m going with it.

ok, order away!

recent news…

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so before i get to totally NEW news…

last month i participated in the true colors lgbtq art show. i submitted my rachel maddow stencil piece “oh rachel” (pictured below) and it was accepted and exhibited at ashe cultural arts center during pride week. it was an honor and was kinda just the kick in the pants i needed to start thinking about making more art. and the best news is… the piece sold! thank you to whoever bought it, and to the show’s organizers holis hannan and maxx sizeler. and to my dear friend isobel who i know was really the one responsible for me being in that show – love you, darlin. thanks.

oh_rachel