Greetings from the road! No real post today, but here’s a poster.
I’m looking forward to participating in Art in the Square in Gainesville, Georgia, Sat. & Sun., Sept. 21-22. This was my first art show for artsyletters last year!
If you’re in the area and out and about that weekend, come on by. Many wonderful artists will be displaying and selling work, and other treats will abound. For more info, please click here.
Hope to see you there!
Whew! The streets have no doubt been swept after The Decatur Book Festival last weekend (the nation’s largest independent book festival, with 70-80,000 of your closest friends), and I’m still catching my breath. It was strange being there as a vendor this year rather than as an author, but much fun all around, and I’d have to say a successful weekend.
The Kids’ Parades are always a highlight at the Decatur Book Festival!
Here are a few pictures of my booth:
Couldn’t have done it without the help of my wonderful hubby, Jeff…
We had terrific weather on Saturday (albeit hot), but the rains blew in off and on on Sunday. Not enough to dampen spirits. I still caught up with some good writer/illustrator buds.
Fellow art critique group member Leighanne Schneider had her gorgeous art on display directly across from my booth – she’s a regular at DBF with her Doublefly Designs.
Then Leighanne and I went with Elizabeth Dulemba to go cheer on Jo Kittinger, who was presented with a community volunteer award on Sunday afternoon for her fantastic book, THE HOUSE ON DIRTY THIRD STREET, illustrated by Thomas Gonzales.
Caught having a good time! Leighanne, Robyn, Jo, and Elizabeth. (Photo by Elizabeth’s wonderful hubby, Stan.)
I can’t believe I neglected to get a picture with the amazing Kirby Larson, but she kept coming by to brighten my day. And buy more artsyletters merchandise to boot! I was thrilled to meet so many new customers. Teachers, students, poets, historians, writers, artists, calligraphers, printmakers, journalists – you all make my heart sing.
Finally, huge thanks to my daughter, Morgan Black, for getting all my inventory loaded on my Square account the night before the festival. Everyone needs a college student on hand to help with the technology… :0)
It was a fabulous, fun weekend, and I look forward to Art in the Square here in Gainesville in just a couple of weeks! Come on out if you’re around.
Happy Almost-Fall….
In Unity’s “Daily Word” devotional booklet entry today, there’s a quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
As we celebrate sweeping, life-affirming dreams for humanity today, I’m also thankful for smaller, individual ones. My kids are both starting a new year in college, and my husband has just begun new, fulfilling work. And I’m pondering that artsyletters is almost a year old! 
While my business won’t fund those college educations, I feel blessed with the feedback I’ve gotten from customers this past year. I’ve sold work to college professors, history teachers, librarians, writers & poets, artists, high school students, mothers and grandmothers and husbands – folks from across the country and even across the ocean. And I’ve only just begun!
This weekend I’ll have a booth at the fabulous, crowded, lively Decatur Book Festival
BOOKZILLA interpreted by Dan Santat
in Atlanta. (Not too far from the children’s stage – come on by if you’re there.) I’ve enjoyed participating as an author before, but this will be my first time as a solo vendor.So my desk/work area pretty much looks like this:
Multiply that, and you can imagine what my studio (and the rest of the house) looks like this week.
I will not have all the inventory I’ve imagined in my mind – so many projects, so little time! But I won’t run out of ideas for future shows, either. Here are some 5 X 7 pieces made with those new letterpress blocks I raved about before: 
I’ve hand-stamped the blocks with oil-based printing ink, then decorated with a dip pen and India ink (and some gold on the smaller ones) .
And because I just found a wonderful complete set of typewriter keys on Etsy, I’ve assembled a few more earrings:
I’ve just sold three collages out of the blue, so I’m hoping to finish up a few more framed pieces to add to the mix. And I need to get back to blinging up some bookmarks, packaging notecards, putting together magnets, sprucing up booth decor… Who needs sleep?
Wishing you a moment to pause today and think about dreams big and small, with gratitude for those who have risked their own lives to make life better for others. And I wish you an outlet for your own creative dreams, no matter the size!
Greetings, Book, Letter, and Art Lovers! Do you have a special bibliophile in your life?
As a new school year looms, I’ve got books, books, books on the brain. How much does my family love books? We are beginning to process of gradually relocating (more on that later), and pretty much the first things my husband has packed are boxes of books. We need to donate some from our teetering stash, but how to decide? I’m putting some of my zillions of children’s books aside for our oldest, who will be teaching young readers just two years from now (after she graduates and then completes her masters.) We’ve already given our youngest some books to take to college, as if he won’t get enough there!
Well, if you know someone who can’t resist the turn of a page, the crisp smell of the latest bestseller or the musty aroma of a time-tested classic, the heft and weight of words in hands – all stitched up in a glorious volume of board, cloth, paper and ink – I’ve come up with a new gift package that might suit.
First, a package of “Book Nerd” note cards. I made the original design for these with my little book relief print carving and hand-stamped the words “BoOk NeRD” with vintage metal letterpress type, all on torn paper. (The notecard reproductions suggest this texture, but are completely flat.)
These come in packs of eight cards, printed on premium cardstock from environmentally sustainable forests with gloss coating on the outside. White envelopes are included. (Packaged in clear, archival 2 ml polypropylene.)
Next is – what else? A bookmark! This design was made with the same vintage metal letterpress type, and features a black relief print border. It’s printed on premium cardstock from sustainable forests with a gloss coating, finished with a black ribbon and an antique brass-colored cord crimp. It’s packaged in a cello sleeve.
Finally, who couldn’t use a fun magnet to keep track of all those reading lists? A smaller image of the book design and stamped letters, printed on premium cardstock, is cut with a deckle edge and layered on a like-wise deckle-edged piece of copper cardstock. These are collaged onto a 2″ X 2″ canvas board (painted black) and covered with acrylic gloss. A strong 3/4″ magnet is secured to the back.
Each item is sold individually (just click on each picture if interested, and you’ll zoom over to the appropriate listing in my Etsy shop), but I’m offering a little bit of a break and a fun presentation for the whole bundle. The cards, bookmark, and magnet, each wrapped in its own clear packaging, are placed in a clear cello bag with gold woven tissue. Gold and black raffia tie up the nerdy ensemble. 
Wishing you and yours a happy August. I’ll be in and out of town, and working like crazy to stock up for the Decatur Book Festival street fair at the end of the month, so I’m declaring myself an honorary European and will take some of the month off re. blogging. But only a couple of weeks – I’ll see you back here before the festival!
I love vintage wooden printing type. The chunky solidness of each letter, the way a block feels in your hand, the patina of oh-so-smooth wood, ink long since seeped into its grain… ahhh.
My own collection began with a jackpot. Rummaging in a local antique store early last year, I found a beautiful old printer’s tray and asked the proprietor if she had any typewriter keys. No, she replied, but did you see the wooden type? She took me to the back, back room (where I didn’t confess I’d already done some pretty thorough snooping). Under a stack of boxes, she unearthed a few black plastic musty dusty trays, encrusted in years of delightful neglect. They were full of large wooden letterpress letters! “How much for all of them?” I asked.
“As you see, no one has touched them for a long time. How about $20?”
I couldn’t believe my luck. (And I’ve since discovered that letters like these easily command $5 or more apiece.)
They came home with me and mostly stayed in their trays for months, until not long ago I asked myself why I was keeping them hidden, when I’d love to look at them every day? So my poetry books got moved from their narrow little bookshelf to a bigger bookshelf (their numbers had outgrown the small shelves anyway), and the vintage wooden shelf got moved into my office/studio, just behind the big old desk where I make most of my artwork. 
I enjoy the letters every day now, and I have easy access to them for projects.
I always keep an eye out for letterpress type when I’m antiquing. (I have a good little collection of metal type, too.) I’ve picked up some treasures, but I’ve also discovered that some letters are extremely hard to come by. I didn’t have a single C or E, for instance. So I went on an Etsy hunt to splurge on a complete set if I could find one.
I fell into a shop based in India, Vintage Marvels.
Oh, my. The hand-carved letters are beautiful and have a bit of an exotic flair compared to the standard fonts already gracing my shelves. 
With a specific project in mind in which I’ll hand-stamp their impressions (you’ll see soon – promise), I purchased TWO sets. I just couldn’t decide, and I wanted the two different sizes. The larger blocks are about two inches tall, and the smaller ones about an inch.
Call me obsessed, or a nerd, I don’t mind. There’s something magical to me about the rich, dark lure of vintage letterpress. And I’m sure the feel of the blocks harkens back to endless hours of playing with toy blocks that the lucky among us remember. You could make words, villages, towers… whole worlds out of little wooden blocks.
Now I get to tap into this world of imagination and endless potential as a grown-up, too.
These letterpress-inspired cards offer a bold way to say Thank You! The original image was hand-stamped with vintage blocks. Click here for my Etsy shop listing – a pack of 8 cards/envelopes is $7.50 + shipping. :0)
Do you have some treasures that bring you joy tucked away somewhere? Life is short – make them a part of your daily experience!
Art Break Wednesday is taking a mini summer break this week. I hope you are having a terrific, creative, sun-shiny summer, and I’ll see you here next week!
Robyn
BOOKZILLA interpreted by Dan Santat
July already! I hope you and yours are enjoying a happy week celebrating Independence Day. Today I’m directing you to all the info recently posted about the upcoming Decatur Book Festival – Aug. 30 – Sept. 1 on the beautiful Decatur Square in Atlanta.
I’ve participated in the festival in past years as an author, and even enjoyed a stint on the children’s stage in 2009 (following Jon Scieszka. Really.) This year, I’m thrilled that I’ll be one of the vendors among all those cool booths brimming with goodies for book lovers. I’ll have my “literary art with a vintage vibe:” – mixed media pieces, relief prints and drawings, note cards, book marks, hand-stamped letterpress initials, and more. I’ll have some books for sale as well. Please come by! (Thanks to Square, I’m happy to take credit card payments as well as cash.)
Fellow art critique group member and amazing artist Leighanne Schneider has participated as a vendor for several years. I signed up before I knew this, but now I’m looking forward to hanging out with her all weekend, too.
Those dates again for this LARGEST INDEPENDENT BOOK FESTIVAL in the nation? LABOR DAY WEEKEND – August 30 – Sept. 1, 2013. See you there!
(Sorry for the day’s delay – summertime, you know….)
What if classic authors had used social media? I’ve had some fun with this idea creating the start to a series of new works using vintage “Authors” playing cards.
For instance, perhaps the Bard, while penning Romeo and Juliet, would have dubbed himself @mymindmisgives and sent a little message to @dearestjuliet – “Stony limits cannot hold love out” – with the hashtag #hanginginthestars.
Okay, I’ve been having fun playing with vintage metal letterpress type, too.
I’m making 8 X 8 shadow box frame versions like the one above, and, in a smaller image at a smaller price point, a matted 8 X 8 option with mini-versions of these vintage cards. Like this:
Here we have Charles Dickens, in the midst of David Copperfield. Hence the reference to himself as @trueastaxes, the quote, “Trifles make the sum of life,” and the hashtag #umblepie. (That’s bona fide “umble,” not “humble.”)
You get the idea. In my Etsy shop I’ve got a couple of the framed versions and three of the matted pieces. I’ll add more as I make them and want to have a nice selection of these (and lots of literary art) for my booth the 2013 Decatur Book Festival coming up Labor Day Weekend.
For these “hashtag classic authors,” I’m only using phrases lifted from their direct quotations and works. I hope they would get a kick out of them if they time-travelled to our fast-paced, social-media-driven lives. To see this section in my Etsy shop, click here. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting!
Nice surprise in the mail this week: I’m the proud owner of a new trademark!
A business name does not have to be registered as a trademark, of course. But I wanted to give it a try. My experience was fairly fast and painless as these things go.
When contemplating starting an art business and Etsy shop last spring, I came up with lots of brilliant business names. Only to find online that other folks had come up with said brilliant names long before I. When “artsyletters” meandered into my mind, I was happy to discover I couldn’t find it online. First stop: website domain. Then I opened an Etsy shop with the name, though I wouldn’t add any items to it for a few more months. I got a Facebook page, Twitter account and Pinterest account using it. (Plus a few other social media outlets that I haven’t really set up yet.)
It’s somewhat easier/cheaper to get a trademark if the name is already in use by you in commerce. So I made some sales starting in late summer last year, stocking my Etsy shop and hitting some art shows in the fall. I put my name/logo on all my products and had a banner made for my show tent. Now I was ready to apply for a trademark. Watching the budget, I opted for LegalZoom.
My eyes tend to glaze over with legal-ese, but I was (pretty much) able to figure out the forms. When I had questions, the LegalZoom folks responded in emails or when I called. I decided to apply in an already existing category (International Class 16) that most closely matched what I’m producing, even though I don’t make all of the items in that class (um, pressed flowers?).
They conducted an initial search. This search brings up names of businesses which might cause confusion for consumers, and therefore might keep you from being able to trademark your chosen name. After these results, I opted to upgrade my membership so I could speak with an attorney by phone for 30 minutes before sallying forth. (You can upgrade without any kind of lengthy contract – in my case I did for the first couple-few months of the process so I’d have access to an attorney appointment at a very reduced rate.)
The person I spoke with was very clear, professional, and friendly. He pointed out one other existing business name which might give the USPTO pause when considering mine, because the category of products was similar. He said he thought I had at least a 50/50 chance of getting through the first time, though. With those precarious odds and crossed fingers, I decided to proceed. I filed in October, I believe.
To my delight, my business name was published in the USPTO Trademark Official Gazette in March after its initial review. This means it was “published for opposition.” Well, let me let the USPTO explain it:
If the examining attorney raises no objections to registration, or if the
applicant overcomes all objections, the examining attorney will approve the mark
for publication in the Official Gazette, a weekly publication of the
USPTO. The USPTO will send a notice of publication to the applicant stating the
date of publication. After the mark is published in the Official
Gazette, any party who believes it may be damaged by registration of the
mark has thirty (30) days from the publication date to file either an opposition
to registration or a request to extend the time to oppose.
I never discovered any objections, and I got the lovely certificate above in the mail this week. The entire process can take from six months to a year, and in some cases, longer. I was happy to enjoy pretty smooth sailing for mine. The whole process cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $500, with the very modestly priced phone consultation tacked onto the registration fees.
If you decide to pursue it for your business, be prepared for some other interesting mail to come your way. I’ve had several letters from entities whose return addresses are countries in Eastern Europe, claiming to offer international “filing” or “registration” of my US trademark, all for say, a few thousand dollars. I love the fine-print disclaimer that came in one yesterday: “...please notice that this registration has not any connection with the publication of official registrations, and is not a registration by a government organization….” – yet the “fee” was $2327.00. (!)
Please also note that this little ramble in absolutely no way whatsoever constitutes any sort of legal advice, which I am unabashedly unqualified to dole out. (Also, no animals were harmed in the composition of this blog post.) But I wanted to share this little piece of my journey for other indie artists/interested folks out there. Thanks for coming along!
Today I have a special treat – for me and for you!
First, I get to meet my friend Ann Goble for lunch. We try to do this every once in a while – not nearly enough! Ann has been a dear friend for many years, as we’ve both raised our kids and pursued creative careers as well. Our sons just graduated, but I know our friendship will long continue.
Now the treat for you – I thought I’d share a bit of Ann’s work here to brighten your day. I’ll have her back for a real interview soon, but I wanted to whet your appetite.
Ann began seriously painting in1999. She has studied under renowned painters including Roseta Santiago, David Leffel, Gregg Kreutz and Marc Chatov. Her work has garnered numerous awards and hangs in galleries and private collections.
Her paintings are breathtaking. Here are some of my favorites:
The Boss – ©Ann Goble. All rights reserved.
Camellia on White – – ©Ann Goble. All rights reserved.
Amber – – ©Ann Goble. All rights reserved.
Ann begins her artist’s statement, “Painting is for me a search for beauty.” I think you’ll agree she’s found it! You can learn more about Ann and see additional paintings here.
Horses of Los Cob – © Ann Goble. All rights reserved.
But wait – there’s more! Ann’s mother, Ruth I. Money, is also an accomplished painter. (You know, the apple doesn’t fall…) Ruth and Ann have exhibited their paintings in the same shows before, and if you happen to live in north Georgia, you can see an exhibit celebrating both their careers. “Mothers and Daughters” runs until July 19 at The Bowen Center for the Arts. Click here for more info, directions, and images of paintings – and feel free to leave some love in the comments below.