Tagged with self acclaim …

Nov 09 2011
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With Care

Representation.

Medium-sized news, guys!

Actually, it isn’t even new news. I just haven’t mentioned it to anyone because I wanted pictures and proof for posting and positivity.

Over the summer I was invited to exhibit in the One Way Gallery, a contemporary art gallery that is based out of Narragansett, RI with a second location in the heart of Providence. As I said, I decided to play it cool about this until I could snap some photos or until they updated their website (still waiting on that one.)

Originally, I have expected to have my stuff exhibited only in the ‘Gansett gallery- in addition to my tattoo dress, I was also showing some needle work and jewelry pieces and my contract with Queen of Hearts keeps me from exhibiting any of the With Care stuff in other downtown PVD locals. So, I was pretty charmed the day that I stepped out of the Small Point Cafe, took a big swig of my coffee and then looked up to see the ol Weekender staring back at me through the gallery’s front window.

I’m pretty happy about this. Maybe, someday, someone will even buy it.

And, on the self promotion tip, if you are around the PVD area and looking to buy some gifties for your love-ed or like-ed one, my With Care jewelry line is carried in town by Queen of Hearts/Modern Love in the 02903, Rocket to Mars in the 02909, and via Lizzy at Second Time Around in the 02906. If you are in the heartland of the country, specifically Indiana, specifically New Albany, With Care can be found at the magical Dandy Lion shop. Here’s looking towards next years and even more avenues of the commercial participation!

Otherwise, life has been all Halloween, hanging out with friends, snuggling the dog (who is now 4 years old!) and eating lots of food. Seriously. My friend, Melissa, came up from the lands of New Jersey this past Friday and we declared it “Decadence Weekend”. We brunched at Loie Fuller’s (beignets!) and the Liberty Elm Diner (chocolate chip and tasty local bacon pancakes!) and we dinnered at Julian’s, Chez Pascal, and Trinity! We went to New England Demo and Salvage where I bought a sweet work stool and to Circa, the world’s least overwhelming vintage clothing store. I bought some wool Navy-issue drop front pants, a souvenir Newport t shirt featuring Snoopy (in that great late 70s, early 80s light blue color. You know the shade that I mean) and a “Wilroy Traveler” mini dress that has cats printed all over it. We saw Slim Cessna’s Auto Club play on Sunday night and they are still one of the best live acts I’ve seen. If you like baptist tent shows with a hearty undertone of repressed homosexuality, that is. (And I do!) Also, acts of musicianship and a double guitar with a lenticular pick guard.

Dave and I attended a very magical wedding at the local botanical garden, right before Halloween. Giant tropical plants in a huge glass greenhouse on a clear autumn night. It was a pretty wild aesthetic. I have never felt more grown up. This is us, running late as usual:

Invite us to your wedding, please. Especially if it is held at the botanical garden!

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Sep 09 2011
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With Care

Kind of Like Getting Daps from the Internet.

The one thing that I forgot about the fall is that I have a high tendency to get ill during it.

Which is what I am doing now and have been doing for most of the day. If you count “taking NyQuil at 3pm and sleeping until 8pm” as doing something. Nothing really tastes like sickness quite like the taste produced when drinking orange juice with your mouth all artificially dry-yet-slimy from a dose of decongestants. I will probably be better tomorrow but, right now, I’m using this an excuse to not send out emails, take up the sleeves on my new jacket, or care where my glasses have ended up.

But, despite this somewhat self-induced reprieve into “no effort”, I’d like to share with you the couple places that I have seen With Care get some love from this week. Dig it.

The Ebony Arrow Cocktail Ring was featured on BikBik and RoRo’s “Loving Today”. Reading a little further down on her site, I also came across the passage for Matthew 5:37 “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one”. I’m not a scripture quoter nor do I believe in evil (or god, for that matter) but I do believe in speaking plainly and with intent. There are a lot of bad things in the world, you know, -isms and injustice and brutality and all, but few things leave me as cold as flakiness and unfulfilled promises. Not that I am immune to committing either, but how hard is it to stand by your word? And, if you cannot honor your promises, at least be transparent and timely in letting the person on the receiving end know why you must break your word. Ive made jokes that my ideal knuckle tattoos would say “PASS” and “FAIL”. But it’s pretty true. You do. You don’t. GBDFA (or, “God, Bitch! Don’t Fuck Around!” which was my pneumonic device for remembering the bass scale.)

Rachel of Smile and Wave has been wearing one of the Brass Arrow Friendship Necklaces. I wonder who she gave the other one to?

And Beca of Tumbleweed’s Oddshop and Really Fine Glasses Emporium (I added that last part in there) has been rocking her Teenage Lobotomy Pennant Necklace no doubt while making some seriously slick looking, wood veneered sunglasses and working on her new brick’n'mortar shop alongside her gentleman. Their work ethic is seriously making me swell with envy. Or. At least I hope this swelling is from envy.

Unrelateed but, to round it out, here is my favorite image of late:

I can wish, right?

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Feb 27 2011
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With Care

E Novak Dot Com

Finally! All it took was just over 1 year and just over 200 American smackers for me to have my complete web site up and running.

You’ve probably seen it before and, if you just came here from there, you might be feeling a bit like the little square in Pong being batted from one rectangle to the other. However, I’m really happy with it and I’m feeling, dare I say- a little accomplished. It even has a fresh CV, ready for the downloading!

 

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Oct 23 2010
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With Care

Shiny and New.

Currently working on some new newness for the store.

The first order was taking some new photos. I made the rather tentative first step towards formally showing my face on the internet by figuring out the timer on my camera and taking some photos of a Saturday-afternoon, unwashed, uncombed, be-lipsticked me wearing jewelry and stuff. Now you can see what things look like on a real, actual person. I’ll probably recruit some buddies of mine for modeling duty, too. Watch out if you ask to stay over. If the light is good, you will be put to work.

One thing that I did notice was that, damn, I make a lot of really unappealing faces!

But I also took the opportunity to make some purposefully funny faces, as well.

That is my, “F$%&# Yeah! Postcards finally came in from the printer’s!” face.

They make me feel so legit and like I know what I am doing.

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Oct 05 2010
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Show and Tell

Camera Dump.

Oh little blogland friends, I haven’t forgotten you. It’s not that I’m avoiding you and not answering your text messages on purpose. It’s not that I think you are kind of homely looking and don’t want the other cool kids on the internet to think that we are together. It’s just that I’ve been spending over a week being really self-indulgent and entitled to my privacy. Oh. And avoiding. I’ve been doing some of that. And spending. Let’s not forget that past time.

For example, I took these photo booth pictures while I really should have been working on a certain project that I was unable to complete because no one told me about the due date until after it had already passed. But I’m okay with this because, really, I wasn’t all that into making what I was making anyway. I can now put it off until next year and have some big fun more soon. Yay!

Other things that have been up:

  • Spent 3 nights in a row going out and hanging around the town with various friend-types, all of whom I was very happy to be seeing.
  • I got a raise at work. Yeah!
  • Joselynn and I took Martin the World’s Cutest Dog for his first ever swim on the most Indian of summer days.
  • I saw Uz Jsme Doma in a warehouse and SWANS in Boston.
  • I took a sweet, long, autumnal solo bike ride down the Narragansett Bay and  I saw some big ships! Big ships have been the theme of the past few weeks.

  • WITH CARE was featured in Etsy Finds… but they featured something that I was discontinuing. Dang.
  • Melissa came up for her yearly visit. We went to Newport to see fancy houses, fancy dresses, and more big ships. And thrifting and record shopping, of course!

  • Buying fancy make up and fancy shoes. I’m a grown-up!*
  • Still uploading CDs and mp3s from my big hard drive crash in January. We have too much music for human ears.

I also spent the last day all illed up and harsh-trippin’ on non-name brand nyquil but today I am feeling much better.

*No. See photos above.

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Aug 10 2010
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Otherwise

Making a Spectacle.

It’s no secret that I hate summer.

But, I guess that it isn’t summer itself. Because vacation is great and the beach is great and ice cream and gardens and the sun setting at 9pm- all great. It’s just… the heat. Any robust hardiness that I have cultivated over the years just evaporates in the heat. And then there’s the humidity. At least it gives my ultra-fine, duck-fluff hair some shape.

So, on those hot, stifling summer days, I can’t help but seek the comfort of my window air conditioner in the bedroom. Sadly, this element isolation leads to social isolation and social isolation leads to the internet. And that leads to… buying eye glasses online.

Last year, Martin, my small dog, ate my prescription sun glasses. Like, not “chewed”.  “ATE”. But- I was able to find these, my dream specs, while I was shopping around for a new pair. I love them. I identify with them. THEY ARE ME. Is my favorite zine HEY! Four eyes! checking this out? Because 2010/2011 Ms. Specs-Appeal is right here, kids!!!!! The perfect blue. The perfect curve. So cool.

But, I know what can happen. Dogs will chew; butts will sit; cars will smash head first into intrepid girl cyclists. My love may be eternal, but my glasses will probably not last forever in this cruel world. So, why not make the most of cowering from the mid-day heat by searching for other pairs of Art Craft browlines on the internet?

And I did.

And, in the end, despite casting my net wide and the inevitable heart break of the amazing black and white, new condition frames that got away at the last second, I was able to net 2 pairs for under 10 bucks each.

Photographing glasses with lenses in them is difficult and photographing yourself with something that isn’t an iMac is a pretty funky process for yours truly. It was hard to make both of us look okay.

Anyhow, these are aluminum Art Crafts, same shape as my spirit glasses, but in a lovely copper finish. And they have these great little flowers etched into the corners and the arms. I like how the bolts for the arms have been integrated into the design.

Pair 2 are not Art Craft at all, but Bausch and Lomb. I’ve never had a pair with this shape which is subtle, but still different than what I am used to. Also, as fab as those cartoonish cat-eyes are, I think this is as outlandish as I will go. I just want to look like a pretty girl, not someone who’s desperate for attention, or- as I say- “given to acts of look-at-me-ism”.

This was more of an experiment. The arms on the glasses are in crap shape, but I have a feeling that snooping and proper questioning of my ever-obliging optometrist will yield some success.

Thank you for entertaining me in this blogging venture. I’m hard at work on WITH CARE business. Spending money with hopes of making money and all that. And making it look uniform, cool, and uniformly cool. We all know that money is cool, but isn’t being cool the coolest cool?

Here’s to a season of not being hot, just around the bend. (hurry! hurry!)

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Jul 31 2010
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Otherwise

Interviews Granted

My friend and co-worker Kayla interviewed me for the blog that she is starting up: Style Munster.

She says some really nice things about yours truly and I had a lot of fun answering her questions. Check it out!

Kayla and I on Halloween. I am a head on a platter. She is Lady Gaga. The mischief has yet to begin.

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Jul 21 2010
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With Care

Bird Watching

Today, we at the present shop decided to do some work in the field so we set up a small yard sale on the campus of RISD.

A few of our friends joined us soon we were doing a slow but steady stream of business selling new and used clothes to high schoolers attending summer programs at the collage.

So, we’re watching all these young ladies and obliging boy friends pick at garments when this girl’s fly looking necklace catches my eye. “Man. That’s a sweet looking necklace. Kind of familiar, too…. Oh. That’s cause I made it.” This is the first time that I’ve come across something I’ve made candidly, “in the wild”, you might say. I wasn’t sure what to say to the girl but after I ham-fistedly told her what was up, she was very sweet and allowed me to snap some pictures of her and her gold Lucky Penny necklace.

Thanks so much, mystery girl! Keep up those good grades! Your parents and I are very proud of you!

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Jul 06 2010
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With Care

New Options in Commercial Particpation!

Oh boy!
Did I announce that WITH CARE has bounded out of the virtual world and into the real one (just like on that old Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where Homer ends up in a real-life erotic cake shop!).

Delightful and fairly priced goods are now available to those in the greater-Providence area at 2 incredibly-charming locations!


1. Queen of Hearts
222 Westminster St., PVD, RI 02903

My display is right behind the I’m Your Present rack with all of the great sun glasses topping it! QoH has no small list of covet-able goods plus they offer alterations clothing on purchases, just like in the olden days of shopping. The store is new and clean but so comfortable and friendly. Not at all the snooty boutique experience that keeps me from shopping at snooty, minimalist boutiques. Everything looks so good and very “Providence” but without all of the contrived, purposeful amateurism that radiated outwards after the collapsing of Fort Thunder and made an impression on every SVA and RISD sophmore’s hand-silk screened comic/zine/noiseband/t-shirt series. And thank goodness for that.

Here is a photo that owner Karen Beebe took of the clip-on bow ties and hair ties:

2. Rocket to Mars
144 Broadway, PVD RI 02903

Rocket to Mars is one of my favorite vintage stores in, possibly, the whole of the US of A. It’s way more colorful and fun than any stuffy antique co-op, the stock rotates frequently, everything is priced so well (I can’t stress this one enough in this day and age of other certain New England vintage stores selling “Vintage 1997 Baby-doll dress from Caldor’s, NWTs!”) and the quality is superb! Not only that, but the place always smells like my old, spinster aunts’ house and the record collection behind the cash register makes me want to punch myself in face. It’s the best of the hip, retro shops in Seattle that my cousin took me to in the early 1990s (thus forming/deforming most of my idea of what “hip” is) mashed with the second-hand junk, retro, and punk stores in Baltimore that I would drag my mom through at the other end of the 1990s.

I have died. This is (blue) heaven.

Regardless! I made few special items for R2M, all culled from vintage goods. Check them out in the display case that lines the side of the store. They are right by my favorite area: the vintage eyeglass section.

Oh! And they do a monthly dressed window. This is last November’s Thanksgiving Day Disaster window, but I also have fond memories of Xmas 2009′s Drunken Santa window.

I know that I am going all loopy and hearts-for-eyes over these two places and that it might seem a little disingenuous since they both carry my works, but I stand 100% behind these two rad-lady-run local businesses that do so, so much to make Providence a place where I love to live and they deserve every nice bit of everything.

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Jun 13 2010
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With Care

Business Cards Are Also Serious Business

I may have mentioned that, as a graduation gift, RISD extended a present of 50 custom MOO business cards to each CE grad. Which is seriously lovely and useful gift, certainly better than a 10% off coupon for the school gift shop. Part of the gift was also to highlight the new MOO US facility that is in, of all places beautiful and bike-accessible: East Providence, RI! PVD has been trying to retrofit itself as hub for the (often fun) crux where information, design, and technology meet. I like this further proof that old warehouses can be used for more than trendy lofts.

ANYHOW.

As a gift to myself, I allowed myself to be bewitched by a copy of Taschen Book’s Type. A Visual History of Typefaces & Graphic Styles, 1628-1900

It was peering at me from Symposium Book’s front window and I was suddenly struck by Agent Cooper telling me that his secret is to treat himself to one special thing everyday; not to think about it but just to indulge. It didn’t hurt that it was being sold almost 50% off the cover price, too.

ANYHOW.

The book came with a code for accessing over 1000 scans of images in the Taschen archives. After quick perusal, I modified a few of the motifs into mock business cards, but was most pleased with this one:

I think it is a good 2.17″x 3.31″ representation of myself, yes? The back lists that I am an artist, seamstress, and history student. And contact info, ‘natch. I was going to add a personal quote, but decided that would have been too Alan Shawn Feinstein of me.

“To better the life of one person is to better the world for all peoples and persons for their lives.” ASF

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