Etsy is pretty great. It's not the flea market that is ebay, its not quite a high-end boutique, but seems to fall somewhere in the middle-where you never know what you're going to find. And really, the imagination is the limit.
Just look at this: someone is making neato little moss terrariums in jars. I want one! (hint, hint)

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I have been a big fan of the author and journalist Michael Pollan ever since I read "Botany of Desire" two years ago. Insightful and educational, it discusses the stuff we deal with everyday: our food. Now to top it off, Pollan has written an open letter to the next U.S. President about reforming the food and agriculture industries. The New York Times Magazine published it in their Food issue and you can read it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Its a big item to read, so if you want the broad strokes listen to his October 20 interview on Fresh Air as a podcast here:
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4985908

His basis is that government subsidies are influencing the kind of foods that are cheaply available, namely wheat and corn syrup. Those subsidies also negatively impact farm diversity and use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Besides government policies, he also makes plugs for revitalizing food culture, making it a regional thing again, and a point of education (for instance, make school lunch part of the curriculum).
I realize Pollan is doing some dreaming, and reponses to his letter have pointed out the tough realities of reform, but I say there's nothing wrong with a dreamer. I wonder how these ideas will influence the Victory Garden of Tomorrow art project?

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I just love books, especially little books, and especially hand made interesting books. That's why I put together this little item to sort of accompany some of the Victory Garden poster artwork I've been making.

Special thanks to Pamela Price at Red White and Grew Blog for contributing an article about the History of Victory Gardening. You can learn more about what it is and what's inside at my Etsy store.

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The Victory Garden of Tomorrow project is back in full swing. Between doing some sporadic freelance design work, and before classes start later this month, I plan to 1) have some lithographic prints made of my poster art, 2) finish designing a companion 'zine, 3) finish the new website, 4) plus! I've made some panel paintings of designs that I'm very close to finishing.

Showing some of this work at September's Last Thursdays on Alberta (Portland) would be bomb, but will it be ready? Either way - I'm having a lot of fun ;-)

UPDATE: So Last Thursday was awesome! Thanks to everyone who came by and chatted--I was inspired.

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One of my big heros is Saul Bass, a giant in graphic design and motion graphics. He created some of the memorable film opening sequences for Hitchcock films like "Psycho," and "Vertigo", as well as "Alein" and "Casino" plus an impressive lineup of corporate logos like AT&T, United Airlines, and others.

Anyways, I like his modern style and I thought I'd share a couple videos from YouTube - the first is from "The Man With the Golden Arm" then a Bass inspired intro from "Catch Me if You Can" created by Florence Deygas & Olivier Kuntzel.

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So I recently saw a little video (sorry, lost the link) where Ira Glass (of NPR fame) gave a little pep talk to creative type people. He says, basically, too many of them fall victim to their own good taste. They know what's good, that's why they got into the industry, but when they look at their own work so far, see that its not up to their own snuff, they're inclined to quit. And, he goes on to say, that's a mistake, because it can take years for talent to incubate and skills to develop into some really extraordinary work - so stay with it. He goes on to illustrate an example in his own early journalism career (that I thought was weak, but, hey, I feel what he's saying).

This advice spoke right to me. I'm still plugging away at own my artwork, and I'm rarely satisfied with the results. Right now, I'm taking another stab at my agit-prop poster artwork. There's a new website in the works, and at least 5 new designs I'm developing. The plan is to have the site and some kind of art work ready to go by mid-August. I'll probably hate it at first, but at least I'll have done it, shared it, and learned something. That can pretty satisfying, I think.

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Moses and I put this together for Ben Stagl. He really likes it and is getting the hang of blogging. Take a look and see what you think: http://benstagl.com/

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An Etsy friend wrote an amazing review of the "Victory Garden of Tomorrow" project. Find it here. She cites another post from a Portland blogger who's views I couldn't agree with more - see that here.

Anyways, I think its great to keep the conversation going about our visions of what we want our home and town to look like, and take a hard look at our values.

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So I put all of the drawings for new poster ideas into a little zine. Now I can show folks and we can talk about them - fun. For real, I did get pretty excited doing these and wrote a bit about each one (click the image as the show goes by).
As of now, I'm thinking about picking a couple to make into stencils and create full size poster images that way. 

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I moved my store from my own site to Etsy, which I have always loved and I'm now excited to mingle with the Etsy community. 

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So my dude Moses and I have been hashing out designs and code to make websites for some people. So far so good, but we're just in the begining of this particular incarnation of our pro lives - (shrug) hey, its a living. And if you happen to know someone who needs some help... well then,
be sure to ask www.WhatisBogDesign.com

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Here's a life-snapshot for this past week. Life always seems to be in the details:

So this past week I recently heard a talk by international artist Lucy Orta, I saw No Country For Old Men last weekend and thought it was amazing, I recently went to an art show featuring hand-made bicycles at Weiden+Kennedy, I just became a member of the Independent Publishing Resource Center ("A safe place for nerds") where I've gotten to know the art director of Bitch magazine, I attended an AIGA social event called dMob, I'm working on a web design venture with Moses, I'm sketching ideas for new artwork, I just found a new - more fun - bike route to work, my new medical+dental insurance just kicked in, I'm reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and phew - that's it. Oh, and I have a day job.

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