Thursday Ride With Justin

Last night was cold as all get out. Even with that being the case Justin and I went on a little ride from Gasworks to Ballard. It wasn't far - but we picked up the pace and rode.

Mini adventures are sometimes the best. We stopped in for a drink at Kings and had a good heart to heart. I'm happy to know that bikes can bring folks together.

- keep riding

Photoshoot - It Was Perfect!

I had a lot of fun doing this photo shoot with Jodi.  She came all the way from New York.  Just kidding, she was here anyways visiting her family - just good timing.  The lighting was perfect and balanced and the location was crisp and perfect.  I'm really bad about giving modeling direction, so she just did her thing and it worked out amazingly.  

New product will be posted on the website shortly.  I'm pretty pumped on these new combinations.  They all turned out great.  These are also available at the Whole Foods Market in Roosevelt Square, Seattle Washington and Whole Foods Market in Bellevue Washington.  The photos were from their orders that got shipped out.

NOTCOT.org - Kind of a big deal

Yeah, so this is a pretty big deal to me.  NOTCOT.org is a pretty amazing website that has some really impressive featured artist on it.  Friends like Derek Albeck have been featured on it among many others.  A very pretty girl named Allison O’Connor has this great BLOG called 24:00.  She was the one to snap the shot, wrote the BLOG and submit it.  From there NOTCOT.org thought it was rad enough to put on their front page.

As of right now I'm still in shock over it.  I have some large installations going up this weekend, and this makes me want to go do WAY more now.  She even got a picture of one of my mustache boxed installations.  So freakin awesome!

Kerry and Felix’ bikes stolen! We make posse!

This is a repost from Kerry:

Our bikes were stolen at about 7:30 pm Fri 2/6 in front of the Ballard Goodwill. My bike is a silver Marin track bike (50cm) with a black stickered spengel tri-spoke in front. It had drop bars wrapped in blue, and the downtube and toptube were wrapped in flourescent yellow duct tape. Felix’s bike was pink, about 60cm, with custom paintings all over. It had pink powdercoated handlebars and seatpost. The wheels were black deep vs with pink iro hubs. the wheels were wrapped in pink and yellow duct tape. PLEASE if you see anything on craigslist that matches this description, or see them around town PLEASE call the Seattle Police, the case number is 2009-045823. the phone # is 206-684-0850. thanks

Kerry and Felix

You can also contact ryan@bikebloc.com, and I can forward info to Kerry/police

Thanks for keeping your eyes out-

Justin and Stephan also had their bikes jacked- more info, pictures to come.

Bikes, Art, Sandwich & Typography

Tonight was our thursday night ride. We went to the Pioneer Art Walk and hung out for a bit. I like the Western Building a lot. Got to see my friend Dave (check out his work at Starheadboy) and talk to him for a bit. I'm going to pick up one of his painted bricks.  I did not have much cash or a bag with me tonight.  They are super awesome and can not wait to add it to my art collection.  After the ride we went up to the Honey Hole on Capitol Hill to meet up with Domino, his lady and their friend from New York.  I had a tasty sandwich for dinner with tempeh; so good.  At that point I rode back down to Pioneer Square to catch up with my friend Mary at some fashion party thing.  Then back home and up Avalon.  I love hate that hill.

My night is going to be finished off working on this freelance job I got for a supplement company.  Holy crap!  I forgot how much I love typography and cleaning type up.  With my own work I don't do anything with type, and I feel like with my old corporate job that is almost all I did.  Funny how those things creep up on you.  I'm making the design tighter and tiny bit cleaner.  It is good for the purpose of it.  So only minor tweaks.  I'm also setting it up for printing and cropping.  It's time consuming for sure, but I do miss this kind of work.  To be honest, it is so easy for me... I think that is why I like.  It involves almost zero effort for me, just busy work like an assembly line.  That might sound weird for a semi-creative process but it is true.  I'm going to be stoked to go in to some of the supplement stores around town and see them up and out.  

Today was awesome!

Goodie - Freelance!

Score!  I just landed some freelance work today for Graphic Design.  Perfect timing, and the project looks super fun.  So it's a major win win!

A Mouse, a snail and a Banana

From Seattle's Drawing and Comic Night:

New Product Shots

Printed some new combinations for Twilight Artist Collective today.  Pretty amazing color combos - took photos and now I'm posting them.

Yup, I sure do

I love my life... that is a fact.  Off to go print some shirts for Twilight Artist Collective.  Then take photos and drop them off.

10 Reasons Why Today Rules

Reason why today totally ruled:

1: I did not change out of my sleepy pants all day while I worked

2: Found out that the CPSIA just got suspended for a year!!!!!

3: Did I mention that the CPSIA is stopped for now, till it can be re-thought and actually protect children from lead?

4: I made home made wheat bread with olives

5: I had an amazing conversation with my good friend Brenna today

6: Found out my best friend in the world Mia is coming to visit me in Seattle

7: Did some drawing

8: Gonna watch a movie Hon Solo then go to bed at 9pm on a friday

9: Decided that Partybots is going to start making Top Tube Pads, and printing my dorky drawings on them.

10: Got a bunch of data mining work done today

It feels good to draw

Woke up this morning and all I wanted to do was draw.  Wall-la!

A little printing, data entry, bikes and stickers

This morning was a little hard to get out of bed.  I can happily say that since I have been riding my bike every single day my insomnia is gone... not counting right now since I'm still awake.

My online orders have picked up in the second half of the month.  Thank goodness for that.  I know it is a scary time with the economy.  Its a pleasure to know that folks still want rad dorky drawings on eco-friendly apparel.  Hooray!  Shipped out 5 orders today.  Got some data entry done and even had time to start working on some new stickers.  I need to get a new Sharpie thou, the one I have is a fine point.  I like the detail, but my lines are way to thin for me liking.

My evening ended with Ryan, Ian and I going on a bike ride around the city ending at Flowers in the U-District.  It was a good ride, a little slower then last week but we also tracked up a lot of hills.  An hour and 27 minutes of solid non-stop riding.  It was nice to hang out at Flowers since Bubba and Koos showed up.  Both of those kids are super amazing.  I have all these ideas of drawings in my head based on bikes now.  I'm sure I will be thinking about this for the next three months before I sit down and start drawing.  That is generally my process with this type of thought in regards to drawing and planning.

Tomorrow I have more printing to get done and hopefully I will have time to upload new product to my website.  Officially - there are 87 choices of my dorky drawing.  Closing in on 100... then it is party time.  

I have another art show coming in the summer, I finalized my concept for it this week.  The show will be called "A 100 Reasons."  I kind of want to keep this show sort of a mystery only to be unveiled on opening night.  More on that later, want to get the iNVASiON show done first at Twilight in April before I start putting a lot of time on this next show.

shut it down....

More on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act - PT.2

Last week I wrote about this, because this new law being enforced by the CPSIA is just up-surd.  A friend sent me this article and I feel it sheds a lot more light to the stupidity and danger of this law.  The dangers for small business is enormous in both practicality and cost.  Not only that but this law does not grandfather product that is already on the shelf now or before Feb 10th.  So all product must be removed until certified by this third party.

I'm both appalled and sad by the overall impact of this.  It might force me to shut down my Kids and Toddler line plus lose several stores that are all children apparel boutiques.  The impact for my own business is going to be huge.  My hope is that both my suppliers for my apparel and printing products certification will be enough to allow me to continue selling.  Or, Congress wakes up and realizes what a terrible idea this is.

Here is a link to read the article from The New York Post:

Or you can read it here:

"By JEFF STIER

Last updated: 12:54 am
January 28, 2009
Posted: 12:52 am
January 28, 2009

IF Congress doesn't act quickly, tens of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs - and several hundred New York businesses will get hit particularly hard.

The problem is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which Congress passed overwhelmingly last year because of fears about lead in toys from China. Bizarrely, the law threatens US-based children's clothing makers as well as toy makers - and even libraries. Its staggering, unintended consequences have prompted outrage from everyone from "mommy-bloggers" to some environmentalists.

In the name of safety, the law imposes absurd standards and insane testing requirements. These aren't based on science, but on political hysteria - and they're a major burden on business. In this recession, they could close down countless companies whose products are perfectly safe.

One example: The law not only requires testing of components of children's clothing for tiny levels of lead, but also separate testing of each different style of clothes, even if made from the same materials.

What's worse, the Consumer Product Safety Commission interprets the law to apply to kid's clothing retroactively. So products already en route to stores - even if they contain no lead - will be illegal to sell after Feb. 10 if they haven't been tested.

Wal-Mart is telling its suppliers that everything it has in stock that hasn't already been tested must be out of stores by Feb. 1 - even if that means sending the stuff back to suppliers.

This is creating chaos for everyone involved in making and selling children's items. Unless Congress acts now, tens of millions of dollars worth of safe children's clothing will be destroyed - and that's from New York City clothing makers alone.

Dozens of small, family-owned New York businesses, already struggling, will shut down and/or lay off their workers. The city could lose a quarter to a half of its 8,000 garment-industry jobs within weeks. Cory Silverstein of Kids Headquarters on 34th Street fears he may have to lay off close to 100 of his 600 employees in the city.

Meanwhile, the test requirements will make children's clothing more expensive.

Opponents of this "safety" law include not just businesses but activists like Chicago writer and environmentalist Manda Aufochs Gillespie, a.k.a. "the Green Mama." She writes that it "has made things much harder than they need to be": Even products that already meet much-stricter organic-certification requirements, as well as European Union standards, are not exempt from the "safety" testing requirements.

Companies like Chapter One Organics are also angry - because big business can absorb the costs and pass them along to consumers, while smaller companies will be forced out of business.

The law's onerous testing requirements may even apply to children's books. If so, until every single children's book is certified safe, libraries would be off-limits to children. So the American Library Association is lobbying for a quick fix to exempt libraries from the law.

But the law is so fundamentally flawed that it can't just be tweaked - it must be repealed. Then, Congress can consider a more science-based approach to safety that protects children without destroying whole industries.

The immediate need, however, is for Congress to simply delay the law from taking effect. If it doesn't act now, thousands of small businesses will close and consumers will pay more for everything they buy their kids.

Jeff Stier is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health."

Thursday Night Ride: Come Tonight!

My friend Ryan and I are hosting a weekly thursday night bike ride. I'm going to try to get in the habit of posting it on my BLOG in case anyone wants to come out. Tonight will be a 19 mile ride around Beacon Hill and back.

I'm sure we will come up with a name for this... sometime soon.

Gasworks - Capital Hill - Beacon Hill - Mt Baker
19 Miles
Mile Instruction For
1 0.0 R Depart Gasworks Park going east on the Burke-Gilman Trail. 1.1 mi
1.1 L 7th Avenue, then immediate right on 40th Street. 0.3 mi
2 1.4 R Eastlake Avenue E (across University Bridge). 0.3 mi
3 1.7 BL Harvard Avenue E (underneath I-5). 0.2 mi
1.9 L E Shelby Street. 0.1 mi
4 2.0 R Broadway E. 0.3 mi
2.3 L E Roanoke Street. 0.1 mi
5 2.4 R 10th Avenue E. 0.1 mi
2.5 L E Miller Street. 0.1 mi
6 2.6 R Federal Avenue E. 0.9 mi
3.5 L E Prospect Street (at end of Volunteer Park). 0.1 mi
7 3.6 R 12th Avenue E. 2.4 mi
8 6.0 BL Cross over I-90 and continue on Golf Drive S. 0.1 mi
6.1 Continues as 15th Avenue S. 0.9 mi
9 7.0 BL Beacon Avenue S. 1.4 mi
10 8.4 L Cheasty Blvd S (at end of golf course). 1.2 mi
9.6 BR Continue as S Winthrop Street (just before Martin Luther King). 0.1 mi
11 9.7 Take overpass across Rainier Avenue. 0.1 mi
12 9.8 Exit overpass and turn right on S Mt. Baker Blvd. 0.5 mi
13 10.3 BR Continue on Lake Park Drive S (at Mt. Baker Park). 0.3 mi
10.6 L At bottom of hill onto Lake Washington Blvd S. 0.2 mi
14 10.8 BL At Coleman Park, go back up hill again. 1.2 mi
Continue on Lake Washington Blvd S over the top of I-90.
15 12.0 Enter Frink Park and start down again on Lake Wash Blvd. 0.5 mi
16 12.5 L At bottom (Leschi) continue north on Lake Washington Blvd. 1.5 mi
At stop sign (Lakeview Park) take S-curves back up hill.
17 14.0 L E Harrison Street. 0.6 mi
18 14.6 R Martin Luther King Way E and cross E Madison Street. 0.1 mi
14.7 Continue straight on 28th Avenue E (E Prospect Street). 0.5 mi
19 15.2 Continues as 26th Avenue E. 0.8 mi
20 16.0 L E Lynn Street and immediate right on 25th Avenue E. 0.2 mi
21 16.2 L E Roanoke Street. 0.1 mi
16.3 Follow bike signs to University of Washington through alleys, 0.2 mi
across Lake Washington Blvd to 24th Avenue E over SR-520.
16.5 L Exit museum parking, continue straight, turn on E Shelby Street. 0.1 mi
16.6 R Montlake Blvd NE, cross the Montlake Bridge to UW. 0.4 mi
22 17.0 L Cross Montlake Blvd and turn left onto Burke-Gilman Trail. 2.0 mi
23 19.0 L Return to Gasworks Park.

long day

Today was long, wanted to get more done.  Off to bed to get up super early to start fresh in the morning.  Tomorrow/today will be another amazing day.

shut it down...