Langerado, JitD, UM San Fran April Release

Hey folks, I'm getting emails asking when these posters will be available, so here's the info: Jeff and I are leaving for Amsterdam on Wednesday, March 12. We will not return until March 28 and will not be in the studio until March 31. Due to this, we will not be adding the 3 posters to the web store until the first week or so of April. We will do an announcement by email and also here on the blog. Please keep an eye out for those announcements.

Also, we are getting a lot of hard bounces when sending out our newsletters. If you are on the mailing list and did not receive the email I sent about the Preferred Buyer's Club and Subscriptions, then you are either not on the mailing list, your email server is bouncing our newsletters or they are getting caught by your spam filters.

I will add release dates and info as I know it to the blog. When we get the new site up, all this info will be there. We'll also have a place to print our newsletters in full on the new web site.

Look For DCS Posters in Guitar Hero III!

Yup, there's a few Drowning Creek Johnny DiDonna/Jeff Wood collabs up in there.... every time you get paid, look for the Umphrey's McGee South Bend print. It's also my understanding that at least 2 Drowning Creek Studio Alumni, Jeff Gaither and Jeral Tidwell, also have artwork in this version. Congrats, guys! Looking good!More pics:

The Stacks are getting Smaller!

We've been feverishly adding new items to our Scratch & Dent section since we added that new section to our web site. We were totally expecting it to be a success, but the response has been phenomenal.

For those of you who don't know what's up with this section, we created the Scratch & Dent section because over the years, we've had posters become damaged through handling or displaying or for completely unknown reasons. They've been stacking up and taking up space and even though we've auctioned some in the last years, we're still got a huge number of them left.

Most of the pieces are not heavily damaged and will look just fine tacked to a wall. Or framed, if that's what you prefer.

Also, in the regular section on the retail site, some of you may notice some increases in pricing on some prints. This is due to the low number of available prints still left for sale. We've not had time to make a list yet, but there are dozens of prints in the store that we have less than a dozen still available. I've been moving listings to the archive section weekly. For example, there are only 3 Clinic, 6 Tenacious D, 2 Beth Orton, and 3 Candy Snatchers posters left. And that's just a quick glance at the inventory sheet. Not so far in the near future, there will be no more Derek Trucks/Susan Tedeschi Fall Tour '06 or any of the PNE Audioslave posters available thought Drowning Creek any longer. If you've been putting off purchasing something, now is a good time to finally get that print you want. When we put up the new web site, we'll be raising the prices on a lot of the almost gone posters!

Alrighty Folks.... Happy Turkey Day!

This is the first time in a couple of years that Jeff and I are in the States for Thanksgiving. The last 2 years we've been in Amsterdam working and playing. This year, we'll just be working. Don't feel too badly for us, though, I managed to earn enough Turkey points to get a "free" bird and I'll be cooking Mama's famous cornbread dressin' and cauliflower salad and giblet gravy. Nothing better than Thanksgiving leftovers...

Anyway, on Friday we'll be putting the Cannabis Cup and Hank III posters up in our store. What about the Dragon prints? I still need to make sure I have everybody covered from the initial release and if there are some left to go in, I'll put those up, too. Please, if you already ordered one or 2, let the folks who didn't get one on the first release have a chance at these.

Most of the tubes from the last release and orders taken after have shipped. I still have just a small number that still need to ship for various reasons, so if you have not received a notice from the USPS with a Delivery Confirmation number yet, yours may be among those few.

Jeff and I are working on a new web site and store upgrade. We have taken a lot of the suggestions from our customers to heart and are looking for solutions to some of the not-so-user-friendly aspects of the current site. Also, the blog will become part of the main site and all of our updates will be done there.

That's all for now! Don't get too stuffed on Thursday - save some room for some posters! Happy Thanksgiving, guys and gals!

Dragon Print and 11.01.07 Release Updatery

Well, as most of you can imagine, the order monkey (me) is just a little overwhelmed with orders right now. All 120 copies of the "Here There Be Dragons" print sold out on the release day and in addition to those orders, we took quite a few other orders for items I just returned to the web store after inventory. Some of you are writing to inquire about the Dragon prints that we still have... yes, there are a small number still available, but I won't be able to tell ya exactly how many until Jeff has finished with them. Please hang tight and as soon as I know the number I'll pass along the info on how they can be purchased.

Meanwhile, if you already have an order pending please be patient. I'll contact each person as I get through the process of getting them into Quickbooks. I plan to take it slow and easy in order to minimize any shipping mistakes that I might make if I tried to hurry the process. Oh, and it's just me, folks. I'll be answering all your emails, invoicing all orders, packing all tubes, creating all shipping labels and then driving 'em to the Post Office, so be patient and you will soon have a tube full of DCS love headed your way.

In studio news, artist Dave Huckins will be here on Monday and Tuesday watching the wheels turn at DCS. I'll tell him y'all said "Hello."

And with the New Poster......

...you all realize that this means Jeff has got his print floor in order and prints lined up ready to go!! Yay!!

We are slowly getting back on track here after a tumultuous summer and fall starting off with some major work behind the scenes. I've posted a few updates about it already, but allow me to go ahead and post a little more info.....

We're in the process of upgrading our store software. For those of you who have never fooled around with something like that, it's an extremely time-consuming job. For those of you who do write code, I'm sure you can empathize. It's been especially time-consuming because after I started working on the store, I realized how many broken links and incorrect info we've had for goodness knows how long now. A lot of items in the site weren't able to be pulled up with the search engine. And, the organization of the gallery sections left a little to be desired.

I'm trying to correct all of this. It's going to take a lot more time with over 400 different listings to check and double check, but I'm well into it and it's starting to shape up nicely.

Something else I've been trying to get done is to put all items available for sale into the web store or back into the web store if they were ever there before. Where are these prints coming from? I'm pulling some out of my vending inventory, some from my framing drawer, some were held back during releases in the case I needed to replace damaged prints, some just missed being inventoried and some APs and handbills just somehow never made it into the store. I've already lost track of how many I've added back already, so there is not going to be a concise list of each item I added. In most instances, there have been 1-6 prints added for any given print. I am going to continue to add prints until every single print that is for sale under this roof is available to be purchased online.

In addition to the above, I've added a couple of categories to the store section. One for Handbills of prints that are sold out and a Scratch and Dent sale section. I'm pulling the DCS prints from the OOAK section and added them to one of the other categories. I'll start loading the OOAK section down with prints from Jeff's and my personal collection along with some other weird stuff like a few skate decks.

I have a metric crap ton of Scratch and Dent items to be added to that section. In the instance that a S&D poster is from a Sold Out edition or is still available in the store section, I will create a new listing for the S&D poster(s). This means if you do a search for "Allman" you'll pull up a listing for the regular store items and there may be another listing that at first looks identical, but is for the S&D item(s). S&D prints will be priced out according to current retail price of the mint poster and how damaged they are. I will do my best to describe damage to the prints, and in fact will probably make most of them sound worse than they are just because sales for these items are final.

There are still many, many items to add, and much work to do on the details, but I wanted to post this since I am already taking orders on prints I've just added and I don't want anyone to think I'm holding out info on them. If you're looking for a particular print, check and see. It might just be there.... and if you place an order in the next couple of days before the release , just let me know and I'll combine orders for you if you place another during the release. And about the release....

I mentioned that I might be doing a release this Thursday.... it looks like that is going to happen. I've got 2 Umphrey's McGee posters to put in the store and if things go well on the press, it looks like we'll have an art print taboot. As usual, it will likely be at 2pm, but I'll update as I know more....


I'm sure there is something I've forgotten, but I'm tired and it's late.

Terror In The Aisles

Next up, Umphrey's McGee Halloween.... a frightfully good print for what will be a terrifying night to remember at the Denver Fillmore! Posters and handbills will be available at the show. Show info:

Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Fillmore Auditorium
1510 Clarkson Street
Denver, Colorado 80218
303.837.0360
- doors: 6:00 pm
- show: 6:30 pm
- Umphrey's plans to transform the Fillmore into the "Terror-Torium," paying tribute to Halloween and horror movies; join in the celebration by dressing as your favorite horror movie character; take top prize in the costume contest and win year's worth of free shows at the Denver Fillmore
- with Kinetix to open
- 16 and over
- tickets are $22.50 and are available through Ticketmaster.com

New Posters Up Tuesday 2pm

OK folks, I've been experiencing a little "weirdness" with my email list program. I had planned on sending a newsletter to our list to announce today's releasze and Umphrey's McGee sale, but I have been unable to access my editing window.

In addition to the 2 new posters, I went through our poster room and pulled out all the extra Umphrey's McGee posters that were pulled for vending or that were kept back as replacements in case copies were damaged in the original release. I've added those copies to our OOAK section. Why? Well, Jeff needs a new camera lens and I'm trying to get him enough funds to get what he needs. Be sure to check the OOAK section.... when we return from Burning Man , anything still left there will be put on eBay in auctions. This is our last release before we head out for our Burning Man trip.... I saved releasing the SCI poster so I could add this loverly UM/YMSB print to it. We've got limited quantity of each, and I'm putting them in the store Tuesday at 2pm EST. I'll start shipping them on Thursday and will continue until all orders have been filled.

Shipping Changes at Drowning Creek

We have several things to mention in regards to our shipping and fulfillment, so bear with me while I go through as much as I can here. This post will be linked from our FAQ page on the main site for easy back-reference.

As everyone probably knows, the USPS increased rates back in mid May. At first we throught that we would not be affected, but we soon realised that shipping costs being charged for some locations were not covering actual costs. Due to this, we very quietly raised our standard shipping by $.55 per base rate from $8.20 to $8.75. This price includes insurance and the cost of the tube and packaging materials. We'll further review our shipping and possibly adding a dynamic calculator to our store so that the costs are more accurate by distance, but until then we still reserve the right to add to the shipping cost quoted on your input order as necessary. We do not do this very often.

The international shipping calculator is currently not working properly on our web store. We're not sure why, but we'll try to get it fixed asap. If you are an international customer and you input an order and the shipping comes to less than us$5, we hope that you will realize that is likely a mistake. International shipping went up considerably to some locations, often costing nearly as much as the posters themselves. When I input these orders, I calculate postage using the USPS web site's International Postal Calculator using the 30529 zip code to whatever country the order is shipping. You may do the same on your end if you'd like a better idea of the shipping before placing an order. Most single poster tubes weigh approximately 12-15 ounces.

Now for the "big" announcement:

For a little over the last year we've been blessed to have Mr. Rick Ramirez and Temple Ball Gallery on board with Drowning Creek acting as our fulfillment center. We're sad to announce that this will no longer be the case. Due to Rick's path taking him in the direction of other pursuits, we wil, at least for the interim, be bringing the shipping back in house. Jeff and I wish Rick all the best and hope his journey will be blessed with much success. Thank you, Rick, for all the hard work and sweat you poured into shipping all those tubes!!! We love you!

Meanwhile, we expect there to be only minor transitional hurdles, so hopefully the only thing that will be noticably different will be the postmark on your packages!

Before the Next Release This Thursday.....

...I need to get a couple of things written down for my own sanity.

When we do a release, we take any where from 40 to 140 orders in addition to regular and wholesale orders. It takes time for me to transfer those into Quickbooks, especially when many people change their email address, physical address, card information, etc. I can only get so many done in a day as I am trying to take my time entering info so that we don't have packages being shipped to old addresses and such.

We're also getting multiple orders for the same person a lot.... I understand why, and trust me, we're working on making the ordering process easier. I've been combining these multiple orders to save people shipping costs, but I'm looking at a feature in our shopping cart that will automatically download the orders to Quickbooks thus saving me a lot of time and hopefully it will help get orders out a little faster. When we do this, the program is not going to recognize that there are multiple orders for the same person and combine them. You will be charged for 2 packages. Please try to get used to placing just one order!!!

We send invoices via email to each customer as we process orders for you to check your total and shipping info. Please make an effort just to look at it to see if your address is correct. Quickbooks reverted 2 shipping addresses for customers to their old addres last time and their packages were sent to wrong locations.

Jeff and I are working on a new web site that should make things easier for everyone, but until then, please help me out by being mindful of the above.

Love and peanuts,
Judy

DCS 2007 Subscription Information

We're currently offering the open subs we have available. If you are interested, please send an email to sales-at-drowningcreek-dot-com with 2007 Subscription Request in the title. Sending an email will not guarantee getting a subscription. I sent this following email to people on my waiting list yesterday:

OK, first let me apologize for keeping you waiting for so long to hear back about the 2007 subscriptions. It took me just a little longer to get confirmations from current subscribers than I thought, and I slammed myself with back to back poster releases. The dust is starting to settle....

I do have openings for new subscribers. I have not completely finalized the current subscribers, but I really did not want to wait any longer to contact you all. This is a group mailing, so I hope you'll forgive that, too! Please read this carefully and email me if I have completely confused you by the time you get to the end. I'm good like that.

I'm just going to start with the openings I have, and asign them on a first come basis.

I am doing a few things differently this year.... I had a much more difficult time getting payments this past year. Due to this, I am going to request that we be supplied with a credit card number that can be charged on or around the dates I have established for billing as follows:

4 Payment plan:
Payment 1 due now / Ships last 2 weeks of April
Payment 2 due between July 1-7 / Ships last 2 weeks of July
Payment 3 due between October 1-7 / Ships last 2 weeks of October
Payment 4 due between January 1-7 2008 / Ships last week of January/first week of Febuary.

I am also on a tighter schedule than I have ever been before and I need for my job at the shop to be as seamless as possible. Sending multiple emails requesting payment over the span of several weeks is not seamless, therefore the new credit card "rule."

Here is the text sent to the current subscribers:

I know you've all been waiting to hear something... anything... from us about the last 2006 subscription tube and news on the 2007 subscriptions. I've been putting off writing this email until I had a better idea of what we were doing on the '07 subs and I apologize for making you wait so long. Actually, I've rewritten this email several times.... Please read and respond!

Jeff and I have vascilated on doing/not doing the '07 sub for a few months now. Why? Well, in part, we've been trying to switch gears in the studio's work and we weren't sure how to present the '07 subscription. We have a lot of work already lined up for this year for some bands we currently work with, but we're also looking to print some art prints this year. In order to do art prints, Jeff has to have time to work on the art.... which means less time to chase gig posters. Those of you who got Jermaine's letter about why he is not doing a subscription this year will understand where Jeff is headed as well.

With that in mind, we've decided to do 2007 subscriptions, but for $800 instead of $900 as in '05 & '06. That will take some of the pressure off Jeff in the area of gig posters, and allow him to spend more time pursuing his own art interests without being art directed by someone. As usual, the $800 includes the cost of shipping and insurance for each tube which is averaging to approx. $60-75 for each subscriber.

We will include as much of what we design in the subscriptions as possible same as the last 2 years. There will, however, be some pieces that will not be included in the subscription. If we do a very limited run on an art print, it will likely be offered as an add-on to the subscribers first at a discounted price. That will not apply to all of the art prints, but probably any art prints that are done in collaboration with another artist where we will be splitting the edition between the artists and possibly some of Jeff's solo art prints. We are purposefully leaving this a little obtuse because we have no idea what we'll be looking at 3 months from now. Heck, we're not even sure what's up next month... ;o)

To recap, subscriptions will remain much the same as past years except we're lowering the cost to compensate for a few less gig posters and there will be some prints that may be purchased by subscribers at a special price available only for them. Subscribers will be asked first before those prints would go on sale to the general public so that we can try to do matching numbers. We've chosen this plan over raising the price to include all art prints.

The Burning Man print we will do this year will not be a part of the subscriptions at the request of Burning Man, Inc. If you are going to be on the Playa, let us know so we can get together.

So, there it is. If you've been watching the releases we've done so far this year, you know the subs already include the following:

A001DCS7_014 Yonder Mountain String Band Tabernacle '07
A001DCS7_028 Perpetual Groove Speed Queen
A001DCS7_016 Langerado Music Fest '07 Gator
A007DCS7_031 Umphrey's McGee South Bend St. Paddy's Day with Adrian Belew
A001DCS7_017 Jam in the Dam '07
A001DCS7_032 Perpetual Groove Variety Playhouse Lady Luck
A001DCS7_018 Widespread Panic Raleigh

There is also a poster for this weekend's PGroove show at the Little John Auditorium and an art print that has not yet been announced coming up. This should be somewhat of a gauge as to how the year is going to go. There will be more art prints and more posters for some of the bands we work with. The subs also include all handbills and little art prints we create.

So, there it is. Email me if you're interested.

Updatery, Patience and Contacting DCS

Howdy folks!

Well, we're on schedule to put new posters in the web store tomorrow, so here's your head's up on that.... the Jam in the Dam, Umphrey's McGee and PGroove St. Paddy's Day posters will be new in the store tomorrow some time after lunch. I've also been trying to get some One-of-a-Kind items up in that section but I'm not sure if that will happen before tomorrow. I'll try...

Which brings me to the part of the title of this blog post - Patience and Contacting DCS.

For the last several months Jeff and I have been trying to figure ouut how to cut our hours back here at the shop. We've been working from about 9am until abuot midnight pretty regularly for the last several years. Why? Because during the day we have so many interuptions and distractions, we actually don't get any work done until after the rest of the sane world goes home to eat dinner and plop their booties in the easy chair to watch the evening news. We would very much like to get our work done during normal work hours, too, so we can have time for personal art projects and to work on our garden.

In light of that, we've been trying to streamline the order process, the design process and our print schedule. It takes time to transition. It also takes time to work in the web store trying to fix the listings there and add new product. We're also trying to redesign and completely upgrade the software for our web site. Mistakes are easily made when we have to stop to answer the phone or get pulled away to do something else. And we get pulled away a LOT.

How can you guys help? Well, for one thing, please be patient with us on orders. We take a little longer than we used to getting orders processed and shipped, but we're taking more orders than we did back when we shipped the same or next day we received an order. We know you're anxious to get the prints you've ordered, but give us a couple of weeks before you start getting worried. We're also trying to make sure shipping notices are sent when your shipping label is printed so you'll know what date it shipped and have the Delivery Confirmation number.

The time we need to work on these things will hopefully benefit everyone. The ordering process should be easier and less quirky and the web site should be easier to navigate. We managed to get the coding for Paypal payments added to the site yesterday in time for the release tomorrow. I'm not promising perfection, but it should help speed up the ordering process since I won't have to send out Pay Requests and wait for those to be paid until I send the invoice to Rick to be shipped.

For those of you who don't know, let me explain the ordering process:

When an order is placed, it comes to me encrypted. I then decrypt the order and copy and paste the info into Quickbooks where I manually process credit card payments. Credit card payments do not go through when your order is placed, so if you accidentally send 2 identical orders, you will not be charged automatically for both. We set up our store that way to prevent card fraud and having to void and refund payments on duplicate orders. This is why you do not get the Quickbooks invoice right away when your order is placed.

After the order is input and paid, I email a copy of it to the customer and to Rick Ramirez at Temple Ball Gallery in North Carolina where the orders are then shipped out to locations all over the world. Like Jeff and myself, Rick also has a multitude of irons in the fire. Sometimes it takes him a week or so to get orders shipped, especially when we do a release and take a lot of orders at once. Rick is just about the only person in the world I would trust to ship all of our orders, partly because i know he takes his time to assure that your posters are packaged right to arrive at their final destinations in mint condition.

I know some folks like to call to check on orders, but we took the studio phone number off the web site. For concerns about the order itself, please send an email with your order# (it should be something like FD03545) and your questions to me at the sales-at-drowningcreek-dot-com address. That gives me a chance to look into it if there is a problem instead of trying to figure it our while I have you on the phone. I usually write back very quickly on inquiries regarding orders. If you have a question about shipping dates, contact Rick-at-templeball-dot-com.

We're headed in great directions, folks, just be patient with us while we get further on down the road.......

Love and Rockets,
Judy

Who Ees Thees Johnny Thief Person?

So, it has come to my attention that there are probably more than just a few people out there wondering exactly who this Johnny Thief person is that collaborates on posters so much with Jeff. Well, that my friends, is a long story. Some of that story can be found in The Art of Modern Rock if you have access to that. If not, well read on.....

Back before Jeff and I met, Jeff was working as the AD (art director) of Island Screenworks in Myrtle Beach, SC. He had a staff of 10+ artists and interns working under him including Johnny Thief DiDonna and one Mike Martin (Engine House 13). Johnny was Jeff's right hand dude and was one of the few who would pull the late nighters at the shop working with my workaholic partner. As they realised that Island would not go on to do posters as planned, Jeff, Johnny, Mike, Mike's wife Cari and myself started Low Brow Ink. We printed our first screened gig posters in Jeff's and my dining room 10 years ago in 1997.

Anyway, as life will do, we all moved soon thereafter to different locations. The guys continued to collab under the LBI moniker until the shipping became ridiculous. Mike started Engine House 13, Johnny picked up a tattoo gun, and we changed the Studio name to Drowning Creek.

Now Johnny is at least living in the same state as us, even though we suck because we haven't visited him since he and his partner, Matt Lukesh, opened Seppuku Tattoo which also hosts the Drowning Creek Gallery.


Anyway, to make a long story short, Thief is more than just a collab partner... he is a Brother in Arms. Soon we will be adding much more "history" lessons about Drowning Creek to our web site. There will be much more about Mr. Thief, but until then, you can go to this thread on gigposters.com to see some of his amazing tattoo work.

It's Inventory Time!!!!

We'll be doing a poster inventory during February. In March, the prices on many of the posters will go up slightly. We do this once a year, but always with a little warning time so anyone who's been mulling purchasing any prints will have at least a few weeks to get an order in before the price change.

Nope, We Didn't Fall Off the Ship.....

It's been a while since we updated the blog, huh? Jam Cruise was a blast as always. We had a lot of friends and family on the ship this year, and got to spend time with many of them. We also got a lot of rest that has been sorely needed even though I came back with a bit of a nasty cold which has me running a little behind on getting new stuff up on the web site, and getting orders out. I thought an update from the studio would be a good thing to do as well, so here goes:

We've been taking a little time in January to catch up on some projects...

Jeff has been building a new exposure table for the print floor. The old one has seen its better days, and burning screens was taking way too long to be efficient.

Mike and Matthew (Pope Shady) moved the old drying rack back onto the print floor in anticipation of Jeff doing some water-based and solvent-based prints, possibly some screen printed canvases. Old school, baby, old school. He's been planning on this for a while, but we haven't had the time or manpower to move the rack until now.

Both Jeff and myself have been working on our house.... we finally decided how we wanted to finish the walls and floor, so now we just need to squeeze in the hours to do it. Looks like we're going with a Goa/Rokerij/hash den motif.... with a smattering of Central, South American, and Jamaican flavoring ta boot.

I know we've been talking about changing the web site for a long time now.... just another project we rarely seem to be able to make time for.... but we are working slowly on that to make it happen. Look for a new section of Jeff & Mike's photography coming soon. You can see a few of Jeff's photographs over on his Tribe page.

Though we might be doing a few less "gig" posters this year, we've already lined up 2 series for bands that we work with already. There's also a Hittin' The Note series in the works.... the Derek Trucks portrait print was greeted with such enthusiasm that everyone agreed that maybe doing a series of portrait prints would totally rock.

One of the reasons there has been a "lull" in January for us is Jeff has been working long hours on a very detailed and intense reworking of a piece taken from a recent poster. We'll be screen printing that one very soon, but Jeff had to slow down a bit due to lingering issues with his eye that was affected by the Bell's Palsy. The doc told him he could create scar tissue if he continued working such long hours on such detailed work, so we're making sure he gets the rest he needs.

We're also headlong into our raw food health adventure and loving it. We're not completely vegan or raw yet, but we are eating about 80-90% raw. We're feeling pretty darned healthy right now! I'm semi keeping a log and will post it one day when we get the new web site up.

Hope the New Year is treating all of you well. One month is already gone... hard to believe, eh?

I'll post the recent poster jpegs in separate entries......