Oh Hi There!!

A peek at inspiration photos from a folder I started a while ago for the new painting series I'm working on (to be completed by the end of August). It's almost time to let the cat out of the bag on this one... because I want to get you excited, and keep myself motivated... but I'm going to hold off until I'm back from this week's jaunt to San Francisco to tell you about it.

In the meantime, I wanted to apologize for being quiet here in blogville. Excuses:
1) For the last week I've had the great annual opportunity to farm sit for a friend in Baltimore county & have been enjoying time with Phil & with Donkeys, Goats, Chickens, Dogs, Cat & Horse. Lying in the grass, smelling country air, drinking from a hose & taking outdoor showers.
2) Have been a little meloncollie over the moving away of multiple dear friends this week EIGHT dear friends are leaving Baltimore (or already left) this week, and it's hard to see good people go, from a purely selfish standpoint. On a positive note, we have totally upped our penpal collection...

Best of Baltimore poll is here!

One of my favorite times of year is when Baltimore City Paper puts out their reader's poll for the Best of Baltimore. You get to vote on the best of everything in the city from shoes to politicians & everything in between. Phil and I have voted every year for the 6 years we've been here, and it's been fun to see our knowledge of the city grow. The first year here, we could only come up with answers for about 10 categories. That number doubled by the next year, and again the next year. Now in our SIXTH year living here in the greatest city in america - there are finally more categories filled OUT for both of us than there are categories left blank.
At the urging of a friend, I am posting this link so that you can vote for all the best of baltimore too - and so that you might keep Red Prairie Press in mind when considering clothing design & art. The best part is, EVERYONE gets a say, so vote for WHOever you want, and WHATever you want, and leave whatever categories blank that you want too
... just promise to keep exploring this city until we can all fill out a whole ballot with no blank spaces.

VOTE NOW!
(I don't think you have to be a Baltimore city resident to have your vote count - you just need to fill out at least 25 categories)

Nikah

My best friend from NH childhood is getting married next year in a poofy white gown, frosted cake & dance party ceremony. I can't wait to be a part of it, see my bridesmaid dress, and celebrate wildly. I love weddings - of all sorts... which is why I'm sad to miss the first half of her wedding festivities this weekend! She is marrying into a muslim family from Pakistan, and today they will have a "Nikah" - a traditional muslim wedding ceremony which I know very little about, except that it involves being covered in henna, and later, sequins & garlands of flowers and announcing the Nikah to the public. I believe the "marriage" happens when they each repeat three times that they take each other as husband & wife...but I'll have to be filled in later.
I'm distraught to be missing out on being there, but the other brides-ladies and the lovely bride herself have been kind enough to send me photos of the whole process... I thought you might like to see the beautiful henna designs they have on their hands as of last night!
I'm so inspired by the patterns and think that Phil and I will just have to celebrate from afar tonight for our friends.
Kim & Tariq, we're thinking of you, and can't wait for wedding #2!

New Sundresses!

Just in time for your late summer vacation to the shores of ________ (enter picturesque body of water of your choice)... we proudly introduce to you our new Feather print sundresses in black & heather pink.
Sewn from sturdy cotton - slightly thicker than our other tees - these full skirted pieces cinch flatteringly with an elastic waistline just above the naval, and fall gracefully over your legs (without suctioning between them in the wind like some thinner cotton), and remain delightfully opaque in the brightest of sun.*
The lightweight straps cross in the back, adding some style, class and the potential for evening-wear to an otherwise comfy daytime summer dress. All in all, making you feel not unlike a classic ballerina.... even if your vacation is only to the shores of your home shower, and the fancy iced drink we both envisioned you holding just moments ago is just Baltimore tap water.

Midsummer heatwaves, we TRIPLE DOG DARE you to test our ability to look good while sweating!

*this claim tested & proven at Artscape Baltimore 2010

MUCHOS GRACIAS, BALTIMORE.

Screenprinted tote by Artscape vendor: More Collective
Holy cow, my little prairie dogs.... Artscape wore me out, and somehow Monday has escaped me.
My feet are aching, my skin is happy to feel the AC pumping in our house today, and (although possibly influenced by the large pile of cash & credit card receipts in front of me) I'm just elated to live in a city this great, and this supportive of the arts.
We had a fantastic, hilarious & totally exhausting three days at Artscape. I met some wonderful new folks, got to talk with some online customers and put faces to email addresses, and best of all - got to be a part of the huge crowd of talented artists pumping art into the hands of Baltimoreans all weekend!
My weekend purchases included: An annual taste of delicious fried dough (which, I KNOW... down here we call "funnel cake", because they pour the dough through a funnel or something... but to me, it's still called fried dough), a few sips of "margarita" that tasted more like $8 worth of a Ramada Inn swimming pool than the mixed drink by the same name (still... when ice is involved, your standards are significantly lower on a hot hot day..) and most exciting: a beautiful new ceramic mug that Phil picked out from our neighbor, Pink Kiss Pottery. We were in the DIY section, conveniently located near the Midway, art cars, a misting tent, and an alternative food court which lead to the purchases of 2 outstanding falafel sandwiches from a local Falafel-Monger, and a "Wheelie Good Smoothie" - (basil, orange & strawberry) blended entirely with bike power, from our pal Nattan.

Highlights of Artscape for me included the wave skateboard ramp built by Jordan Bernier & friends, the stilts parade, a man that walked by with dollar bills stapled to his belly offering the opportunity to anyone who had another dollar (I passed), the great costumes, the art exhibits on Thursday night (especially Kelley Bell's animations in the Sondheim semi-finalist show - still up at MICA), and all the shrieks of delight we got as people tried on our clothing & gave each piece a new home!

Google hearts Josef Frank!?

BEHOLD! My favorite search engine has a Josef Frank inspired logo today. OMG. If I'd known we had a shared love of Scandinavian inspired art, Google... I'd have paid you more attention!

Now. Back to that Artscape freakout I was having...

When it rains it pours...

image from Life Magazine via CanYouBeMoreSpecific blog
Thank you rain for cooling down our house while I prep frantically for Artscape.
There will be NO thank you's, however, for flooding my studio. That was overkill, in my opinion.
Luckily, all of our shirts are thoughtfully stored in covered plastic bins- To properly weather the weather. Even indoors.

Rachel-1 Mammy Nature-0

Sarah & Bruce's Present

Two of my dear Bmore friends were married this weekend, as was mentioned on Friday, and I decided to make them a present for the house they recently bought and are in the process of renovating. I thought you might like to see the Painting and the research behind it...
Above are a photo of Bruce in his trademark orange sweatshirt; a product & model shot from Sarah's website of her beautiful hand drawn & screenprinted pattern designs & hand sewn dress; and a semi-blurry shot of the painting itself. I never did find a photo of her favorite boots, so I just made them up in the painting.
Thanks to all involved for making this perhaps the most fun night I've had since my own wedding. Really honest, beautiful, hilarious & perfect in every way possible. Just like my friends!

And now, enough of all this fun! I'm grounded this week in the studio planning for Artscape - which starts THIS FRIDAY! Can't wait to show you the secret new dresses I've been printing!

OOOOOOOBOY.

My good pals Sarah & Bruce are being married tomorrow, and it's all I've thought about all week. I've had the honor of helping decorate for the wedding which has been super fun, and at home I've been working on their wedding present. Unfortunately, for today, I won't show you EITHER, because I don't want to spoil any surprises. But I'll show you next week.

In the meantime, here's an unrelated Beach Boys video for your enjoyment, mostly for another pal. because his birthday is being slightly overshadowed by wedding mayhem. And also because it's friday, I don't really have anything better to talk about today, and come on... the weather outside is good for nothing but this...

I'll be in DC most of the weekend helping to jury this years Crafty Bastards - coming back only for said wedding.
I'm beyond excited for my weekend plans!
A happy weekend to all. Keep cool, love each other, be good, and whatnot.

New Shop In Rhode Island!

Rhode Island may be a tiny state as maps go, but some of our best business happens there! Craftland is one of my favorite venues, run by some of my craft/organizer idols, and now we have a spicy new retail shop keeping us around in the ocean state for the rest of the year! Of Corsets Lingerie in Wakefield, RI will be selling our onesies & ladies apparel!

Go check them out, ladies of Rhode Island! And say hello to New England for us, while you're at it.

For a complete list of the shops that carry Red Prairie Press, visit our link page HERE.

Clean Up

Finding myself hiding in the air conditioning quite a bit this week... leaving the house only to swim and get iced coffee and water the poor wilting plants. Since I've had so much time indoors, I managed to accidentally delete the coding in the Red Prairie Press shop, and thus took on a quickie re-design that I like a lot better. Grabbed a drawing from the cuckoo clock design to snazz up the cursive writing, and cleaned up the photos so that there's plenty of breathing room around each one - hopefully leading to a happier shopping experience for you.
Feel free to send feedback this way!

In the meantime, I'm anxiously awaiting my lunch hunger, so I can devour the burritos that my AMAZING friends left on our doorstep last night. They were visiting Syracuse for a wedding, and new that Phil & I are obsessed with Syracuse's Alto Cinco Restaurant (Alto Cinco. high five. get it?) and I used to live a block away. Cornbread & Salad included. If you've never had to move away from a place like that... you couldn't possibly understand our glee.

Nature, Family, Food.

If you were worried that I didn't eat campfire-melted nachos this weekend, well, worry no more.
Phil and I went camping this weekend with our dear old pals Albert & Vanessa in Bald Eagle State Park and boy did we love it.
We cooked & ate delicious food all weekend on both the campfire and a tiny stove our pal Krister made us from a beer can & a nickel (worked AMAZINGLY well). & managed to find time to hike, swim & kayak (despite lack of proof here) too. Growing up, my family went camping every single summer with 3-4 other families from our town. It was the thing I looked forward to most all year, and I still link most smells & sounds of camping (crackling campfires, crunching sticks, whining stove fuel, wet leaves, the sound of a tent unzipping first thing in the morning, kids shrieking from other campsites, water splashing) to those trips. Now that I'm far from home, we don't usually get to go with the group as much, though the parents still take a trip every summer. We realized that we could meet our friends (who live in Rochester, NY) exactly halfway, which would only be about 3 hours each and thus we started our own new tradition.

Another reason we decided to get outdoors is that today marks our 2 year wedding anniversary!
We got married by (as our high school teacher & wedding officiant Tony D put it:) "...the power invested in me by these great woods of northern new england..." and we like to make sure we find ourselves in nature around the time of our anniversary so we can remember the feel of being in those big awesome woods with everyone we loved on that day.
Hard to believe it's been 11 years together with Phil... & at the same time, hardly seems like any time at all. I'm still obsessed with the guy. Still smitten with everything he does, still completely confused as to what anyone else in the world does without him. Surely there is not one person as pure gold in the entire universe.

Hints from Helloise...

So, here is our hanging tomato plant AFTER it grew so heavy that it pulled the screw out of the porch ceiling and crashed to the sidewalk, splitting in half.
And here next, we have the half that split off - which I stuck in a plastic jug of water, much to the doubts of my garden-savvy friends. And did it die or rot, like they predicted? NO! I saved that biddy, and kept alive, and there are tomatoes ripening! So there. We call it the hydroponic plant. (This feat only being exciting because I generally kill most green things within the first year of their lifespan. Is there a name for the manslaughter of plants? Plantslaughter?)
I wish I had thought to take a photo when it was all hanging from the ceiling - double the width of what you see here. But rest assured... we will eat tomatoes aplenty this summer. From the frontyard AND the backyard.

Oh yes.

We will.