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December 26, 2006

Oh Where oh Where

Where does the time go? How does this happen? My last entry was at the beginning of the month, and suddenly it is the day after Christmas. I'm stuffed with turkey, I'm basking in the afterglow of rampant consumerism (in spite of our "no presents pact" we still managed to give and receive in good form) and I haven't let you in on anything we've been doing since our brush with small-town fame. After the book signing, people have been stopping us on the street and/or dropping in to see where the magic happens. It's delightful. A few days ago, a sassy silver fox stopped us while we were on our way back from the park and asked "Are you the idiots?" - it's a good thing we were... that sure wouldn't have worked well on anyone else. Apparently she recognized us because we are known to be the parents of Iggy. (ooh, but I hate it when people call themselves the parents of their dog). The owners of Iggy. The walkers of Iggy. The suppliers of Iggy. The harborers of Iggy.

It's been great being famous.

But I'll give you a quick run-down of the latest, so you're caught up on the things that don't involve us being famous. The regular, everyday things that blogs are supposed to be all about:

1: Matthew moonlighted as a freelance insulator.

2: Oscar became fed up with life in the suburbs, and moved into a cardboard box.

3: Iggy, emboldened by Oscar and his street smarts, joined a gang in the 'hood.

4: I did some clay monoprinting while the unfinished side of the barn was still warm from mom firing the kiln.

5: We packed our recycling bin solid (SOLID) with paper trimmings for new copies of old books.

6: I painted a test patch to see how the wall drawing was going to work out at the gallery show.

7: We visited the old(er) folks down in Georgia (Matthew's grandfather "Pop" shown here) (the man can make a mean praline) (in a good way).

8: We killed a plant.

9: We went to Germany.

10: Matthew washed Iggy.

11: Frere Roji made steak for Christmas Eve dinner.

12: We posed for our first lame family portrait in 20 years.

13: We played dominos (frere Roji and frere cherie Tracy pictured).

14: We didn't really go to Germany.

Posted by ribbu at 11:20 AM | Comments (2)

December 02, 2006

Wild Success (Small Town Style)

Well, you'll all be happy to hear that the First Friday book signing was a wild success (keeping in mind that we live in a town of population 4673 (July 2005) and it's not like there's a million things going on all the time). There was quite a turnout, and the introduction by Prof. Tsui was excellent - she started off by talking about Alice in Wonderland and words and pictures then went through lots of fascinating art history stuff (apparently we are following a long and proud tradition of disseminating art via subscription service) and made us sound like really hot stuff. Then matthew spoke, and though we had a great plan of witty banter, somehow he got bogged down in details and I never had a chance to step in and say anything interesting. I mostly sat there like I was painfully trying to figure out a particularly difficult math problem. So neither of us performed at our best, but I suppose that is the problem with producing up until the very last minute (last book bound at 5:30, arrival at the Book Plate around 6:00) and not preparing much in terms of what we wanted to say. Well, there's always next time. Next time we will be smart and charming and live up to our introduction (yeah, right).

Our good friend and Book Plate owner Tom (and his cohorts) set up a great display table of our collected works. We looked quite official, if I do say so myself.

There was a little crowd of people for the talk, most of whom were friends or people we already know, but there were a handful of folks who turned out to be big fans just because. That's the best. We talked to LOTS of really nice people, people who were so excited about what we are doing - it really made me feel like I was contributing something. We both were giddy with delight. Maybe that's why we were so dull for our talk. I especially like this picture of the goings on during the talk (I interrupted just for you folks) - look at mom. Classic! From the left: Dick Lange - he is showing his lovely Mingei pottery in the Book Plate for this month and was our co-conspirator for the event... he also happens to own one of my favorite prints (that I made) - he's been a great supporter of me, so it was great to share the event with him; Ken Warwick - printmaker, scribbler and architect extraordinaire, Mom - photo puzzler, Aileen - art history intelligentsia (-um?), Carla Massoni - godfatherix of the eastern shore art mob, Marcy Dunn Ramsey - my very first art teacher (I was about 6, and remember being very impressed with my drawing of a bicycle, and very frightened of the cows we went to draw one day - it seemed, at the time, that Roji and Maiko were meant to be the artists in the family) (I still think they have great potential, by the way); Mystery Man Fan - appropriately oohed and aahed over the paper we used for the cover of Vol. III in the most gratifying way; and finally Main Event Tom, who pulled this all together and was responsible for our widespread acclaim in our little burg (you know, Chesterburg):

We had worked really hard to get Vol. III complete for this event, and the best part was that when we arrived there was quite a flurry of excitement about it, and there were several ladies in line waiting for us to sign their copies.

Note the lady in the black and white jacket waving her double-sawbucks in the air - the best!

I'm sure matthew will write more, in detail, on thebarnstorming, but I thought I'd post and let you all know how it went. Right now he's doing some insulation work for Uncle Ken - this freelance life is really taking off! And I have to start working, in earnest, on prints for the show in January. My god - this life of leisure is really not at all what we imagined. But, you know, we need to enjoy it while we can.

Thanks for all the support and interest.
More drawings to come, once I've gotten things under control.

Also, if you want to order Vol. III (what can I say, it's awesome) for gifts to arrive before xmas, please email us so that we can get them in the mail to you. Subscription books will be mailing out at the end of this week.

Posted by ribbu at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

December 01, 2006

Fame and Fortune

Well, better late than never.

Today (yes, today!) is December's First Friday, which means Matthew and I will be down at the Book Plate giving a little chat about Idiots'Books and life in the barn, and signing books. I found out Wednesday night that the illustrious Prof. Tsui from the Art History dept at WC will be introducing us. This is partly terrifying because she's so smart, and also because it suggests that we ought to have something smart to say ourselves. Well, as with our wedding vows, I think we're going to end up totally winging it at the last minute. Because right now we are in high production mode. (Of course, working furiuosly up till the buzzer, as always...) The only reason I have time to write right now is that I'm waiting for our dense and lumbering printer to process all the info and start spitting some paper out. So, feel grateful.

I finished Vol. III of Idiots'Book in record time - started drawing last Saturday and completed printing and binding last night at 2:15am. And, not to brag, but I think this one is a real coup. And not because I finished it at lightning speed and didn't consume any amphetamines to do it, but because this book frickin rocks. I mean, even mom and dad were delighted:

(and, Matthew was delighted with that).

I haven't posted any info about it yet at Idiots'Books (it isn't getting sent out until next week, or maybe a little later) but when I do, I'll let you know. Not to be so mysterious, I just don't want to be a spoiler for all you subscribers out there. Actually, there's no spoiler about it. We didn't even know how cool it was until it was all collated and bound and in our grubby little hands.


So -
here's a little teaser:

= FUN!

I could flip through it for hours. Really! And I usually am so sick of books after we're done with them that I can't look at them for months with any real appreciation. So, I'm delighted too. Yes. We sound like a bunch of leprechauns.

So anyway, if you happen to be around Chestertown at 6:30 tonight, stop by the Book Plate on Cross Street, say hello, and get a sneak peak at the real deal (the new book, not me) (or matthew) (or the leprechauns).

Posted by ribbu at 11:29 AM | Comments (3)