Over the years, I’ve amassed zillions of travel photos and created tons of sketchbook drawings, which then served as inspiration for the illustrations in my new book, The Best Coast. And now, Sasquatch Books and I want to see your Best Coast photos! Post your best, most hilarious, or most awkward West Coast road trip photos on Instagram, and the best three will win prizes!
Here’s how it works: post your photos to Instagram using the hashtags #bestcoastchandler and #contest AND tagging@sasquatchbooks. The photos have to be yours (either ones you shot yourself, or your vintage family photos, NOT rando photos you found on the internet!), and they have to depict somewhere on the West Coast (WA/OR/CA), but beyond that, it’s up to you.
Maybe it’s a picture of little-kid you with your grandpa in front of a Paul Bunyan statue. Maybe it’s a photo from an old family road trip when your mom made everyone in your family wear matching fanny packs. Maybe it shows a historic landmark you visited long ago, that’s no longer standing today. Or maybe it’s just a lovely photo you took at a national park, or your favorite beach photo, etc.
You can post your pictures through April 9, the publication date for The Best Coast; after that I’ll choose the three best photos, and on April 12 I’ll contact the winners via DM to get your shipping address (contest open to winners with US addresses only, sorry!). I’ll also repost the three winning photos to my Instagram account and blog once the winners confirm their addresses.
The prizes: The Grand Prize winner will receive a signed copy of The Best Coast plus a bundle of my art goodies (a 9 x 12 West Coast travel print and a box set of 6 assorted West Coaststate cards). Two runner-up winners will each receive a signed copy of the book. Prizes will be mailed via USPS in April, as soon as the winners confirm their addresses.
The fine print: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between March 18, 2019 and April 9, 2019. Open to US residents, 18 and older. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. See official rules for full details. Contest sponsored by Sasquatch Books.
Best of luck! I can’t wait to see what y’all come up with.
Already 2015 is shaping up to be a year of new projects and lots of changes—I have a barrage of new things to share with you, but rather than bombard you with everything all at once, I’ll stick to just a couple for now. For one thing, I’m excited to announce that a selection of my prints and stationery is part of the Shoppe collection at Scoutmob! So these days my normal stack of packages leaving the studio each week has gotten considerably taller.
Scoutmob is a curated online marketplace of goods by independent makers all over the country. Everything on Scoutmob is made by artist-entrepreneurs—small businesses run by makers like me. So when they invited me to be a part of the collection, I felt like I was in good company. I’m inspired by the diversity of goods being made by independent artists—Scoutmob has everything from cards to art to jewelry to housewares to food and drink—and the collection is constantly changing and being updated. So whether you’re new to Scoutmob, or you’re a seasoned shopper looking for new favorites, stop by my Shoppe!
In other news, I’ve been selected for a Tacoma Artist Initiative Program (TAIP) funding award from the Tacoma Arts Commission! This is the second time I’ve been funded by the Arts Commission (the first time was for my Local Conditions artist book)—and this time I’ll be creating a new body of work called Farm to Table.
As you can see above, I’ve been interested in agricultural imagery for some time, and the subject has been creeping into my work for years. This time, though, I’ll be focusing an entire series of illustrations on local, sustainable farming. I’ll be developing a collection of prints and cards in the next two years, and the project will culminate in a solo exhibition in October 2016. Look for more info and new images soon!
One exhibit might be ending this week, but another is just getting started. On Tuesday night I went to the opening for Ink This!, a new exhibit of contemporary Northwest print arts at the Tacoma Art Museum.
The place was completely packed—both in the lecture space and in the common areas.
I spent so much time catching up with friends and colleagues from all over the region (which is the best part about this show!) that I barely made it upstairs to see the artwork itself.
And then when I got there, I had a pleasant surprise: my piece in the show is prominently displayed, right by the entrance.
It’s such an honor to have my book in a room with so many incredible prints, sculptures, artist books and other work by the people I admire the most.
Most of all, I can’t tell you how gratifying it was to see so many people come up and spend time with my book. That’s the highest compliment anyone could ever pay me.
Many, many thanks to the Tacoma Art Museum for putting this show together; to Margaret Bullock for her amazing work curating the exhibit; to Ann and Peter Darling who lent the book from their private collection for the exhibit; to everyone who has seen the show so far; to the artists themselves; and to the lovely man monitoring the gallery that night, who so kindly gave me permission to take some hip shots with my phone camera. (I couldn’t hide how excited I was to have my work in a museum for the first time—thanks for not laughing at my dorkiness!)
Ink This! will be on display through November 9October 19 (update: show is closing early to accommodate the opening of a new museum wing), at the Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma.
I’m packaging up a huge stack of prints and cards today—tomorrow is the holiday shipping deadline, so get your orders in quick! The shop closes tomorrow, December 17 at 4 pm PST.
Even though it’s nearly as late as it could possibly be, here I am thinking, “Already?!?” But it’s true—even if you don’t do Black Friday (as you can probably guess, I’m partial to Small Business Saturday myself), today’s the “official” opener of the holiday season. And for perhaps the first time ever, I’m actually ready for it! (Well, mostly.) This year I’ve got new stuff in three different online shops—in honor of the three arms of my little business (though of course, if you ever want to combine items into one order, just drop me a line and I’ll make it happen).
First up is my Anagram Press shop, where you’ll find two new holiday cards, inspired by mid-century vintage kitsch.
(One has just a touch of Griswold-y goodness…)
Also in there are my new bird magnets by Seattle’s own iPop! I’m so proud and excited to have these that I’m tempted to plaster every metal surface in my studio with them. (You can read my post about them here.)
Next up, a little holiday travel: I’m pleased to announce the Souvenir Shop is now open on Drawn the Road Again, my new travel blog! You’ll find a big array of prints available there—
And because enough people have asked for it, there are even prints of some of my sketchbook drawings—including a Pick-a-Sketch custom order option.
Last but not least, the Dead Feminists shop has some new additions as well—starting with a small letterpress keepsake version of the Birth of Venus steamroller print Jessica and I did earlier this year.
And we’ve finally restocked our supply of mini letterpress journals (you folks cleaned us out last time we had them in the shop, and it took quite awhile to make and photograph more!). We call ’em “Lemonade Journals,” because we made them from the “lemons” that crop up during printing—misregistered prints and tiny flaws that otherwise would have ended up in the recycling bin. But with some cute stitching and fun colored paper on the inside, Jessica turned them into perfect little stocking stuffers.
Whew! That’s the whole kit n’ kaboodle. Keep in mind that some of the travel and sketchbook prints require a lead time to produce, so be sure to get any made-to-order requests in early! I’ll be shipping holiday orders daily until 4 pm PST on Tuesday, December 17 (when the shops will close for the holiday break).
In the meantime, I’m raising a virtual glass of eggnog to you: happy holidays!
Every year I tell myself I’ll actually take photos duringStudio Tour—and every year we get a bigger crowd, and I get all wrapped up in talking to people, and somehow the camera just sits forgotten in a corner. But at least I managed to take a couple of quick snaps of how it looked before we opened! We had our biggest group yet this year—over 150 people, many of them new faces! So an enormous thank you to everyone stopped by or sent me encouraging social media messages throughout the weekend—I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be a part of this amazing community.
Now that the rainy season is starting again, I keep thinking about my amazing trip to the Chihuahuan Desert last year. Here in Washington, the rains make everything lush and green for most of the year. In the Texas desert, a single thunderstorm was enough to make every cactus for miles burst into bloom. The Tailor and I were so lucky to be able to witness something so rare and fleeting—especially since at the time of our visit, they were in the middle of a record drought.
Those cactus blooms have stuck with me ever since, and I just can’t seem to get them out of my head. So I decided to do something about it—I’ve started a new series of illustrations called Succulent! Instead of letterpress prints, these are purely paintings. I’m just getting started, so here are the first two for now—look for prints to appear in the shop soon!
I’m working on something huge (and secret!) that I’ll be launching very soon. In the meantime, I’m going through the studio and doing some housekeeping (both literally and online). As happens with any big shift, it’s time to take a good hard look at anything that doesn’t quite fit the puzzle going forward.
So at noon PST on July 1, I’m going to be making some changes to the shopin preparation for the big thing to come. And while they’ve had a good run, I’ll be removing a few things permanently—including the last remaining hand-painted linocuts from the Flock series.
(Don’t worry, the bird cards aren’t going anywhere!)
Most of the rest of my hand-printed artwork (like the Mt. Rainier and Horse prints) will still be available, but the prices will go up on July 1—some by quite a bit. So if there’s anything you’ve had your eye on for awhile, now might just be the time for you to snag it.
I’m pleased to present my latest artist book, Hold Your Horses.
The book consists of a hand-bound portfolio (in various one-of-a-kind colors) that…well..holds some horses.
I figured it was only a matter of time before I did another print set like I did with the birds.
This time, though, I picked my favorite equine breeds,
took the opportunity to push the envelope of what hand-coloring could do,
and even experimented with some wacky painting techniques.
I’m really happy with how these turned out, and I can’t wait to show them off at Codex in February!
Colophon reads:
I am not a member of the horsey set. I grew up far too poor for riding lessons, and I can’t claim ever to have used the phrase “saddle up” in the literal sense. Yet horses are as much a part of me as of any American who ever looked westward in wonder. They are living symbols of the wildness that still infuses our deepest desires—even if they no longer permeate our everyday culture.
I never had a pony as a child, but now I can boast a round dozen. Enclosed here is my very own horsey set, displayed in an equine rainbow of dapple grays, strawberry roans, pale palominos, skewbald bays and rich chestnuts. This assembly gathers an assortment of traits and histories to tell the story of our fascination with horses. Each mount stands surrounded by the trappings of its trade or the symbols of its origins.
These trusty steeds were letterpress printed and individually hand-painted in Tacoma, Washington—at the very end of a frontier founded on horsepower. Twelve breeds were printed in an edition of 57 impressions apiece; the entire herd is corraled in thirteen saddle-bag sets.
UPDATE (May 2014): a Hold Your Horses set is now part of the permanent collections at both the Phoenix Public Library and the University of Virginia Library! So if you’re local to either of those places, you can go check them out in person!
I’ve been asked to take part in another collaborative letterpress portfolio—this time, with the theme of an animal abecedary. Each of the participants gets just a couple of letters in the collection, and I’m happy to report I nabbed two of my favorites. For these prints I experimented with something a little different. They’re hand-painted linocuts, like I often make—but these are hand-cut to reveal a fabric background. I’m pretty happy with how these turned out—now to file away the idea for future use!
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