Clay Wood and Cotton

You can now see a selection of my cards online (or in the store) at Clay Wood and Cotton! You can click here to see the full selection of Katharine Watson goods they are carrying. Very exciting!

ToyCam in the Studio

Now that I am no longer using my circa-1985 flip phone, I can actually take pictures with my phone! Who knew they invented such amazing technology? Apparently Christmas is a crazy time when you sell stuff, and I feel like I can't package orders fast enough. I thought I was well prepared for the holiday season, but I have even bigger plans for next year. I'm going to start getting ready for next next Christmas on January 1st 2011. For the last few weeks I have been working like a printmaking robot, so I thought I would share a little of the organized chaos with you.

Thanks Joe!

Cheesy post alert! Last night I took Joe out for a super fancy dinner to say thanks for helping me at every craft show this year, but I thought a public thank you was in order too. So, thank you Joe for lifting ten heavy boxes while I struggle with one, going on bagel and coffee runs, correcting my math when I give people wildly incorrect change, waking up at 5am and then driving all night, and for sitting outside in 20 degree weather. I couldn't do it without you!

Here are some of the pictures I secretly take at craft shows (although none of them show blizzards or exhaustion):

Christmas and New Year Collage

I just stumbled on these Christmas cards from alltheluckintheworld via Poppytalk and I love the idea of making a collage for the front of your Christmas cards. Or any cards. It looks like it came together so easily but it probably took forever to make it look that way. It would be cool to put together a collage like this using things you had found in the last year, so start planning now for next Christmas!

Ever since seeing this journal I've been wanting to make more collages. I had an idea to make a collage every week with things I collected or found, similar to the daily scrapbook I made a few years ago (which is still one of my favorite possessions) so here's to collecting even more ticket stubs and coasters in 2011! Maybe I'll eventually get around to making something out of them.

Back from Bust with a Platter of BBQ

After one of the most exhausting weekends I've had in my whole life, we are back from the Bust Craftacular in NYC. The rain put a damper on things and the show wasn't quite as packed as I had hoped, but we got to go to possibly the best restaurant on the planet. I had been looking forward to it for months. If you live within a 1000 mile radius of New York, get in a car right now and drive to Fette Sau, order the pork belly and allow the food coma to sink in. Amazing. I would move my apartment into the restaurant if I could.

The pork was definitely the highlight of the trip, but I also loved seeing the prints from YeeHaw Industries which I have had my eye on for a while. Their musician prints are my favorite, and I love the way they use text in images. Text is something I always shy away from in linoleum prints because it can come out looking like a five-year-old wrote it, but they pull it off so well and it really goes with the folk-y look of the faces. 

I was excited to see them there because of the new book that I was just flipping through, the Little Book of Letterpress. The book has a page on each of the big names in letterpress, and the YeeHaw team wrote the introduction. It's a really nice book, and now I just need to write to Chronicle Books and ask to be the author of the Little Book of Block Printing. So Chronicle Books, if you're reading this, I'll do it!

To Gaithersburg!

The last few weeks have been non-stop, driving, setting up shows, taking down shows, and then driving to the next show. And to celebrate the end of the Chantilly Christmas Market last weekend, I came down with a terrible cold and didn't leave my bed for two days. Now I am sitting upright again, and ready to go setup for the next big show tomorrow.

This weekend I will be at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds for the Gaithersburg Sugarloaf, another huge show with over 350 artists. After that it's straight home for Thanksgiving, then back to DC for the Downtown Holiday Market, which I am really looking forward to because it was my first ever market last Christmas! Things have really grown in just a year, and this market will be a really great way to see how much I've progressed: same location, same customers, new products and a completely new look. I can't wait!

Last year's booth setup, photo courtesy of Natalie Shaw. Thanks for getting frostbite for me that day!

It's Freezing Out, Time for Christmas Cards

Now that it is November, Christmas decorations are popping up in stores and the temperature seems to have dropped overnight. So in preparation for the holidays, my Christmas cards are finally ready! You can see them all right here in the shop!

Back to the Magic Gardens?

At this time last year, I had just moved to DC. I made several stops on the drive down from Vermont, and spent a few nights in Philadelphia with not much of a plan and plenty of time to explore. While I was wandering around I found the Magic Gardens, a South Philly landmark, and what turned out to be one of the most inspiring places I have ever been. The entire building is covered in mosaics, inside and out from floor to ceiling. The entire thing, and hundreds of mosaics all over Philadelphia, were done by Isaiah Zagar.

While I was walking around the building, I peered in to the back room, and there was Isaiah working on a new piece. We started talking, and I told him I was en route to DC and had just finished college with plans to be an artist. As someone who was in that same spot 50 years earlier, he offered me a scholarship to attend one of his workshops, learn his techniques, and do a mosaic in South Philadelphia. So two weeks later I drove back up and spent two days learning about glass cutters, tile, grout, mixing cement, and watched Isaiah creating his art. It's very natural and fluid; he doesn't sketch or erase, he doesn't plan, he just paints, and the results are incredible.

It can be so easy to get caught up trying to make things perfect that you end up not making anything at all. 

Right now I am frantically preparing for a Sugarloaf show next weekend in Oaks, Pennsylvania outside of Philly, and I can't wait to go back to the Magic Gardens.

To see more about Isaiah and the Magic Gardens, you can watch In A Dream, an amazing movie made by Isaiah's son Jeremiah that covers their lives, his art, and the way the two are connected.

I'm on Poppytalk!

Starting today, I am featured in Round One of the Holiday Market on Poppytalk Handmade! Poppytalk is an online market where you can curate a "table" for a month-long market, so for the next month you can stop by and take a look! Artists are rotated on the front page, or you can take a look at my page right here!

So take a look, It'll be up there for one month from today!

Ink, Ink Everywhere

Yesterday I spent the day at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria using the printing press. I do most of my printing by hand in my apartment, but for the big things like tea towels, they really need to go through a press to come out right. At the Torpedo Factory (and places like it around the country) you can rent out the press for the day and you get to use all their inks, rollers, solvents and all the other expensive materials you need for printmaking. So until I buy a barn to fill with an antique press and hundreds of different inks and supplies, I will be renting.

The new towels are all available right here! Now back to the Christmas cards; the first design is finished, and you'll be able to see all of them by the end of the week (I hope)!

Scenes from this Weekend

After the non-stop fun and exhaustion of last weekend, this weekend was a much needed rest. On Saturday, we drove out to the arboretum, or "DC's Best Kept Secret" as it is otherwise known. Nestled between a car-repair shop and several carry-out restaurants are hundreds of acres of trails, themed gardens and picnic spots. We had planned to go for a bike ride, but Saturday was incredibly windy, so the bike ride was downgraded to a picnic. We found a spot overlooking the Anacostia River from the Asian Garden, which led to many jokes about me feeling at home.

On Sunday, Joe and I got up early and headed over to set up at Eastern Market. When we got there, the line of vendors waiting to get in was huge. Because of the nice weather, they had an unexpected number of people show up and no space for everyone they had accepted. After waiting for an hour, we were told that the market was full but we were first in line for next week. So next Sunday I will definitely be at Eastern Market!

That left us with a full day with no plans, which hasn't happened in approximately a year. So we walked over to the hardware store, bought a gallon of paint and painted the bedroom "Jade Isle."

When we were in New York a few weeks ago, Karen gave us several half cans of paint that were left over from years of different projects. Now that the bedroom is done, we will be tackling the living room with ten cans of different colors. Hopefully we will have time for that before another year has passed.