Seven Planet grand opening & trunk show

On Saturday, September 12, I had the privilege of setting up a display at Seven Planet, the new "flagship" green general store that just opened on NW 4th & Couch in downtown Portland. Aysia, the manager (and owner of Greenloop), invited several of the Trillium Artisans members to a trunk show during their grand opening festivities.
I was really loving the way my bowls looked in these bright little cubicles.


Megan's groovy marble-covered bowling balls and stained glass suncatchers:


Kristen set up outside with her lovely pillow covers. She was right next to the new location of the 24-hour Church of Elvis!

The ribbon cutting:

Aysia at the cash register (I don't think she moved from this position all night):

Some of the live entertainment:
Emily Baker of Sword + Fern with her jewelry made from recycled auto parts:



Amazing mural on the ceiling (by Chris Haberman, of course - I love that guy!):
Melodie and Suzie came by toward the end of the evening, and together we checked out the Old Town Block Party, saw some amazing dancing Chinese dragons, and rounded out the night when Chuck met us for appetizers at The Republic. Loads o' fun in PDX!

Dartgun at the Twilight - Saturday, August 15

Punch and pie!

Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 9:00pm
Twilight Cafe & Bar, 1420 SE Powell Blvd., PDX

Dartgun - with Christine on bass (that's me! I'm excited to wield an axe again!), Melodie on drums and Suzie Q as a lone Vignette - our strangest lineup ever! Chad is camping, Emie quit (wah!), and we still don't have a freaking drummer!

COOTIE PLATOON will save the day.

With help from much-loved psychos the Hickmans!

The flyer says Advisory is playing but we're not really sure about that...

The Twilight is a cool rockabilly old-style diner so come hang out with us, have your beers and get up and dance for God's sake! Yeah SE Portland. See you on Saturday night!

Pink Ladies

It was pink and black night in the Dartgun world Friday night. Here you see the Vignettes: Emie, Suzie, and me, in our special pink wigs, plus Melodie, who is a true rock star and a true friend: she bailed us out by filling in as drummer for the show (unfortunately, Billy has quite the band, and we are sad. We are also looking for a new drummer so if you know of anybody please send them our way).

Here we are on stage at the Ash Street.

Chuck and Suzie in the green room:

At Suzie's apartment getting ready before the show - we are so lucky to have a makeup artist in the band (I should say, a Beauty Dominator):

We played with Hairspray Blues:

...and the Pity Fucks (they have a rad keyboard sound):

...and it was a CD release party for Scott "Deluxe" Drake (of the Humpers fame):

But this is my picture, taken in the bathroom of me and my love:

I know I have been blogging a lot more about the band lately than I have about my art, and I'm sorry! I have been busy in the studio, but haven't had much to say about it.

I'm mostly restocking a lot of my sold designs and getting ready for the Recycled Arts Festival this coming weekend. It's June 27 - 28, 9 am - 4 pm both days, at Esther Short Park in Vancouver. This will be the fourth year that I've participated in the event. I'm looking forward to it. See photos from the 2008 and 2007 shows if you like.

I have a new wholesale order in the works for Grasshopper 510 in Chicago.

In the news: my work has recently been reviewed by Mandala Colors , Tethyis Dreams, Portland Picks, Handmade Nation's facebook page, Gay List Daily, Colorful Dayz, Mable's Unique Gifts, Best Green Home Tips, Etsy Lounge, and Sweet Margarita Studio.

I've also been interviewed for an article that should be coming out this Thursday in the Columbian. It should be in their special section on green living called Clark County Revitalized. The article is about home decor made from recycled materials and will be published just two days before the Clark County Recycled Arts Festival - I'm really hoping it will help me sell some home decor items to Vancouverites at the show!

My kids are out of school and having loads of fun hanging around the house. We celebrated Chuck's grandma's 86th birthday at a family picnic out in the beautiful country. Juke's birthday is coming up and he is planning an Oaks Park adventure. We are also looking forward to going to the beach for the first week of July - four nights in a yurt! I am super excited. See pictures from our vacation last summer here. Yes, we will be hanging up the velvet Elvis.

What I look like

Okay, those are my feet. I got my first-ever pedicure last week, in honor of Melodie's birthday. She and Suzie and I went to Kalista Salon for a session of foot-pampering. I do believe I own the world's coolest pair of "flip-flops."


Also for Melle's birthday, we went out for dinner at Bamboo, where we had QUAIL EGGS!

Here is Suzie showing how one eats a quail egg:


And as if that weren't enough, just today I went out and got a fab new hairdo too! I now have what is known as a "shattered bob." Once again, I had Emie do it over at Gilly's on Clinton Street. I also stopped into Green Noise Records and picked up the Beach Boys' Endless Summer on vinyl as a V-Day gift for Chuck (who is currently making me a lobster dinner!). Anyway, here is what I now look like:

...and a little Photoshop action:

I am working on making some groovy new rings - I bought a ring mandrel on Etsy and am cutting up scrap pieces of painted vinyl records and shaping them to make cute rings, which I'm pretty excited about.

I am also REALLY excited that Amanda (from Bread and Badger) is coming over tomorrow to give me some much-needed assistance with my website, www.eyepopart.com. Look for some new updates soon!

Oh, and here are a couple pics from our show at the Know last Saturday night - it was awesome! It is so cool to look out and see that everybody is dancing their asses off. It really makes me happy to be in a band that people like to dance to!

Listen to our rocking tunes on myspace here: www.myspace.com/dartgun or www.myspace.com/andthevignettes.

The lobster is calling to me...

Holidays, holidays

Hello! I hope you had a lovely holiday - and if you had snow like we did, I hope you had a nice, relaxing vacation! We did! Not only were we "snowed in," but I was also without a computer for about a week (did you notice?). So there was much baking and eating and playing of board games, and reading and going for walks in the snow to do our last-minute Christmas shopping at Value Village and the pawn shop on the corner! (Since we couldn't drive anywhere, and it's not like I would go to the mall anyway.)

We watched VCR movies and played long games of Rail Baron with the kids. It's a game where you buy railroads and travel to destinations and collect money when people ride on your railroad and stuff. We are really into it. We played the UK version which took three days and we are now playing the Australian version.

We also had a great time with my old friend Michael Cordova, who lives and works in San Francisco (oh my gosh, he is a digital artist and he worked on the new Star Trek movie!) but was in town for the holidays. He and Melodie and I all became good friends back in high school. The three of us, and Chuck, had an excellent dinner at Bamboo, then caught the Bloodies' set at Plan B, and took a cruise down Peacock Lane before landing back at my house where this picture was taken:

Just like the old days!


I am getting ready to ship my big wholesale order TOMORROW - the 100 record bowls for Viva Terra. It's been ready to go since Thanksgiving, but they didn't want me to ship until after Christmas. I'm excited to get the boxes out of here!

Also, I have about five working days to design a new spring line to offer at the Portland Gift and Accessories Show, which is coming up January 10 - 13. I am totally procrastinating. I also need to come up with line sheets, order forms, business cards, and a display. (I'm allowing two additional working days for these tasks.) I am sharing a big triangular booth with five other artisans, and we will each get about 2' x 2' to display our samples.

I really need to get to work on that. It is hard. I seem to be stuck in holiday mode. More cookies!

For once, we are not planning to have a New Year's party - so we might be staying in! New Year's Day will be Chuck's and my 13th wedding anniversary - but we've actually been together for almost 18 years. And I might add that it will also be my one-year anniversary of not drinking. Feature that. Then January 5 is my birthday, and the day the kids go back to school!

I do have some ideas for the spring line, it is going to be very simple and cute.

In the meantime I've listed a few new cuffs in my Etsy shop! Take a look:

Best wishes to you and yours for a happy 2009!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe

There is no drug quite like the drug of playing in a rock and roll band, especially when one gets the privilege of "hogassing" the spotlight, as I do every year on the occasion of our Halloween show, when I perform a recitation of "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. Last night at the Jolly Inn I had the true Janis Joplin moment of my life, when The Raven was performed with full backing rock band and doo-wop girls. It was a big hit!
I first memorized The Raven when I was in eighth grade. My English teacher challenged me to memorize it, so I did, and recited it for our class. Melodie Beirwagen was in that class too. Here she is now with our best friend Suzie Q:
It was Suzie who started the Halloween tradition - when she heard that I had the poem memorized she demanded that I recite it at the Halloween parties. It has since evolved into quite a performance piece and I love the chance to share it with the world once a year.

Here's me and my partner in crime:

The Vignettes:
The she-devils of Cootie Platoon were looking especially sexy:


Advisory played, and apparently got kicked out of the bar shortly afterward.



Dartgun rocked!

But that's not all - we have another show coming up on Halloween night - that's Friday, October 31 at Hungry Tiger Too (207 SE 12th in Portland), with Pitchfork Motorway and 48 Thrills. See you there!