now this is a heavy statement! (is it even possible? could i ever say it?!) created locally in minnesota.

photo credit: UUPP etsy shop

the girls came over on saturday night for a valentine pARTy. i bought 2 new heart paper punches and helped myself to a big pile of paint chips at home depot, and i put out glitter and paper and washi tape, and we played:

when the topic of conversation turned to barbies, i dug out my princess leia doll. she was the closest i ever got to a barbie: my mom preferred that i play with an anatomically correct doll. so leia hung out with us while we made cards and garlands and art. as usual, i drank too much wine and my friends made some really great stuff.

it’s friday, and i feel like no one reads my blog on friday… everyone is eager to finish their day and start the weekend (and i am, too!) so i try not to put anything profound or important here on the last workday of the week… so today is the perfect day to show you the second etsy treasury i curated (i posted my first one yesterday).

happy weekend!

ps: no, i’m not itchin’ to get hitched, i have a thing for shiny stuff right now. but i have been a little lonely lately…

before heading to las vegas last weekend, i booked a photo shoot for saturday morning at the neon muesum’s boneyard. while the museum offers walking tours, to have the freedom to wander and take your time and bring many cameras one must book a photo shoot (and it isn’t free!). i don’t gamble at the casinos, and i knew it would be the highlight of my trip, so i went ahead and booked an hour. i brought along 3 polaroid sx 70 land cameras and 4 different types of instant film, but my scanner is not cooperating. for now, i’ll share with you the digital shots from my time in the boneyard, and i hope to share the instant photos next week.

i went to target on monday night to pick up a few things, and i found this bowl at the end of an aisle. i couldn’t resist: it’s a perfect blank canvas! i’m not sure how i’m going to decorate it yet, but when i finish it, i’ll share it here. but most importantly, anyone local want me to pick up a bowl for them and join me for a bowl decorating pARTy in march? leave a comment…

happy february!

it’s getting to be that time of year, that time when there are hearts and pink and cupids and red everywhere, and jamie shelman’s awesome cat cards help keep the whole day in perspective: february 14th isn’t about diamond ring commercials and riding off into the sunset like the movies… it’s about fat cats in heart jammies.

photo credit: the dancing cat etsy shop

i arrived home early this morning (2:30am to be precise) and crawling into my own bed never felt so good. while i loved the warm weather and sun of las vegas (i have color on my cheeks!), it really is an obnoxious city and i’d be perfectly fine if many years pass before i go back. more polaroids to come!

ps: thank you for all the great comments last week! i’m really excited about the new logo, and it’s even more exciting when you are, too! yay!

warning! this is a long post about the history of painted fish studio’s identity…

i really don’t know where my fish “thing” came from, but it made itself known in my late teens. when i was a sophomore in college, i started making handmade greeting cards and was selling them in a few stores, thanks to a friend’s mom that liked them and had a few retail spots. i decided to call myself “painted fish art & design” after a friend told me she wanted to open a b&b and call it painted pillows or painted eggs… i can’t remember which, but i liked that use of the word “painted” as adjective, especially paired with fish. i added “art & design” to the name, thinking that i could use it not only for my greeting card biz, but maybe also use it once i finished with my graphic design degree as an umbrella for design work, too. i think i still have the different fish sketches i made for the logo somewhere, but here is what i ended up using:

i decided to hand write the name, since the chosen fish was very sketchy. i was also very new to design, and believe it or not, i was just learning how to use a computer and graphic design programs (this was 1994, people!) and i hadn’t taken a typography course yet. so hand written it was, and i had a stamp made that i used to leave my mark on the back of my greeting cards.

when i was a junior in college i took a required business course, and i used my little greeting card business as my main project, and it became a legit business. i registered the name and everything.

but then a little thing called the internet appeared, and in my last year of design school i learned how to program HTML and i took a job at a dot-com as a web designer. also around that time: i met a nice boy, i bought my house, i subscribed to martha stewart living, and i stopped creating for a few years.

then the boy and i broke up, i lost my job when the dot-com bubble burst, and i became a self-employed web/information designer. gradually i began creating again, and in the summer of 2003 i made a ton of books and i revived painted fish, but this time i dropped the “art & design” and went with “studio”. i created a new logo, using emigre’s font dalliance, and i designed a website. here’s what my site looked like in 2004:

not much came out of all that work, though. my books were boxed up (i was too shy to walk into stores and peddle my wares), and they sat for a few more years while i worked on my career. i took classes occasionally (painting, collage, bookmaking, pottery…) and i hosted pARTies, but that was the extent of my creative life.

then in the summer of 2007 my grandfather passed away, and i needed to focus on something besides that event and the eventual end of my relationship with the boy (we were on round 2). a friend suggested i put my work on etsy, and after a few weeks of yes i should/i don’t have time/are you crazy?/yes i should, i decided to open the shop and i started this blog. the font dalliance was still my choice for the logo, only this time the layout was simple and a lighter grey:

when i realized i needed an avatar to represent painted fish studio elsewhere on the internet, i struggled a bit to figure out what it would be, because typography alone would be unreadable/unrecognizable as a small avatar. then i remembered a page from an altered book i work on occasionally. i had cut out an orange fish from decorative paper and pasted it onto a page:

i took a photo of it, scaled it down, brightened it up a little, and that’s the fish you’re all very familiar with if you visit my etsy, facebook, and/or twitter pages:

now it’s time for something new! i’m a little tired of the painted fish studio name, and sometimes think it’s silly and stupid. but there’s good brand recognition with it, and to abandon it at this stage would likely set me back. and i don’t have a better name in mind, and i don’t feel comfortable just using my name. so painted fish studio is sticking around. i also want a new avatar, something that is truly my design, and less collage-y.

. . . . . . .
when i sat down in june 2010 and carved a couple fish stamps in erasers, i had no idea that one of the fish would end up being a favorite, and becoming my symbol. (graphic design lesson: the image in a logo is called a symbol or icon. when you add typography to the symbol, then you have a logo. if you have only typography, like i did when i used the font dalliance, then technically what you have is called a logotype or wordmark.)

i started using the fish stamp with orange ink on my packaging, and it grew on me. then heather’s dad created a big wood version for me, and it sank in: this fish is it.

at the end of last year, i started doing design mockups with the fish front and center, and i revisited another old font favorite: meta. meta brings back fond memories of my first design job in the late ’90′s, when i was bright-eyed and ready for the world.

and that brings us to the new design:

i’m really happy with it. the look is a little more modern and clean, which reflects my aesthetic in my work. and i love having an orange fish! i’ve had new stamps made, i think i’ve updated all my online presences, and i’ll be phasing in new printed materials (invoices, moo cards, etc.) as the old ones run out.

and that’s the evolution of the identity of painted fish studio. if you made it to the end, bravo! happy weekend!

i’ve created a new logo for painted fish studio! you may recognize the fish design, and you’ll see more of the orange little guy when you visit me at other social media spots.

i’m heading to las vegas today for a 4-day weekend, but i do have a nice long post in the queue for tomorrow! i’ve written about the evolution of painted fish studio’s identity, and why i made the change. i hope you take a peek tomorrow. and please let me know what you think of the new logo!

ps: i’ll be posting about sin city on facebook and twitter while i’m in there. follow along, and be the first to see photos from my saturday trip to the neon boneyard!

i’m very happy with the design of my triangle jotters inspired by my college color studies, and if they prove popular in my etsy shop, then i’ll work on better/more efficient production methods. for now, i’m printing the covers on my color printer and hand-cutting the paper. i guess it’s a little experiment, really, to see if i should proceed… or move on. and the interwebs has the best test subjects!

i was so cold all day yesterday, and it felt like nothing would warm me up! i kept bumping up the thermostat, i had 3 big mugs of tea, i had soup for lunch, and i even wore my hat indoors. as i shivered, i kept wishing i had a pair of thick wool socks like these.

photo credit: rg ideas etsy shop

shot outside of rosalux gallery on saturday in northeast minneapolis with expired 600 polaroid film. happy monday!

oh i know tulips in december are so unnatural and the carbon needed to produce them and transport them to the upper midwest in december is more than i can ever repay this earth, but it was 2 days before christmas and i needed them.

once they were in my home, i took around 10 instant shots using the different films/cameras, and sent them out as thank yous.

impossible project px 680 color shade gold edition

polaroid 600 (expired 10/09)

impossible project px 70 color shade

happy weekend! (i’m looking forward to tulip season!)

playing around with colors and shapes…

when i posted bookcloth is better in a bucket last week, a few commenters were curious about what was happening on the door. here’s a better look:

most of the polaroids are from 2009. it was a good year for polaroid-taking, and i wasn’t stingy with my stash.

bright, sunny, and sure to inspire wanderlust: amy walter’s colorful snow dome print.

photo credit: amy walters etsy shop

my friend dan needed some headshots to promote his work as a composer. i have cameras. so the day after thanksgiving we went to the back of the northrup king building. a quick synopsis of our day: we did shots of fig flavored vodka for inspiration… we took a ton of photos, both digital and instant… we pissed off a scrap metal/junk artist for accidentally trespassing behind the northrup king… and i took the above portrait, using the impossible project’s px 600 silver shade uv + black frame.

we both agree it was the best shot of the day.

before

after

happy weekend!

even though i consider myself a city girl, when i’m surrounded by fields and open sky i get homesick.

over the holidays i was on county road 7, very very close to where i grew up, and i needed to document my surroundings so i wouldn’t forget i was there. and so i wouldn’t forget where i came from.

all photos taken with expired 600 polaroid film, which explains some of the imperfections, with the exception of the last photo: polaroid sun flare!

i’ve got an extra room on my first floor, which i call the dog room, as it’s the only room that the dogs are allowed to sit on the furniture (the futon has a great view of the street). technically, i can no longer call it a bedroom, as i removed the door frame and 1-foot deep closet during the remodeling project of 2005 (bathroom + kitchen + dog room). when i remodeled my living room in 2009, i got rid of my bookcases so all the books that were in that room ended up being stored in boxes and random tower shelves in the dog room. where they sat and sat.

in spring 2010, my ex took the IKEA entertainment center i had in the room (which matched the random tower shelves), and he took me to IKEA to pick up a new bookcase. which sat and sat in its boxes. here’s what the room looked like, for over a year:

why did it take me so long to put up the bookcase?! it’s because i wanted to repaint the wall the bookcase would sit in front of. and that wall led into the hallway, which meant i’d have to repaint the hallway, too. and i had absolutely no desire to spend a weekend repainting. i could have skipped the paint job, but the walls were scuffed up and looked like crap, so things sat and sat. i finally forced myself to paint last september while i could still keep the windows open. see in the first photo, where i’ve removed the outlight/light switch covers, have patched some spots on the wall, i even have a can of paint and rollers ready? i took that photo last january. it took me 9 months to get my shit together and paint. good grief.

in the last few weeks i’ve put a thing or two on the walls, and found some boxes to store stuff in, and i consider this project done — after 2 years. i still have empty walls. and the rug doesn’t really match, but it was the cheapest one IKEA had, and i am not spending more than $60 on rugs until my 12 year old lab goes to that place in the sky where someone is throwing a ball constantly and his legs work like he’s a puppy again (a bout of the barfs last spring ruined most of my rugs, and a bout of the shits 2 months later finished off the rest). but i’m calling it done!