From the "It Never Hurts To Ask" Category...

So Jeff and I have been looking at how we travel and we've been pulling a trailer loaded with all the things we need to vend and live for 2-3 weeks at a time, but after rexamining this we think we may be better off if we could find a very small travel trailer instead. I'm posting this on the blog because there are a lot of you out there and maybe, just maybe, one of you might be able to help us find what we're looking for. It's been my experience also that putting feelers out into the universe sometimes turns up just what you're looking for - manifesting, if you will. Here's our list of specs:

We need a road-worthy (we're artists, not mechanics) 16-19' self-contained travel trailer. We are looking at Casitas, Airstreams, Scamps and Argosy trailers that have shower and toilet with a fresh water holding tank. A rooftop AC would be awesome, and lots of built-in storage is needed. Appliances need to be working if possible, but we're not completely opposed to replacing something if the cost is right on the trailer. Cost is definitely a factor for us... we can't really sell the other trailer because it has unique usages and we need it for our co-op biz, but we are trying to sell some equipment and stuff out of our archives to help with the cost. We're also in dire need of laptops to upgrade the studio right now.... it's always something, huh?

The year and make/model is not so important as how well the trailer has been maintained. We don't need a fixer-upper, although I don't mind doing some cosmetic work. My brother's MIL does upolstery work, so I've got someone who can do that for me if needed. No rotten floors or leaky ceilings, but gently worn and used is just fine. Heck, even weird color combos are fine. Small and aerodynamic is what we're wanting. Clean and not too "charming" (ifyouknowwhatImean) 'cause we don't want to pull up in front of Jermaine's house for a visit looking all like the Clampett's.

And, as if my list of needs wasn't already long enough, if we could find something within a day's driving distance, that would be swell.

If you happen to have a lead on something you think might fit our needs, send us contact info and/or pictures if you can. We can work out a finder's fee in posters for the right lead.....

Ramblings from the Creek

I find myself sitting down to do updates sometimes and not really knowing what to say or how to verbalize on some subjects. For those of you who have spoken with me in person I'm sure it's hard to imagine me without anything to say.... it's true sometimes, though.

Over the last 6 months or so we've been pretty quiet here. Not intentially, we've just been very busy trying to get some things back on track. We derailed a little last year in several areas, did some soul-searching and have been working to make new things a part of our reality. A new web site has long been in the planning stages along with pictures of the studio and other projects, but we never seem to have the time to make that happen. As I posted yesterday, we're in the first stages of prepping just for that. We've been on an older server for the last several years, but now we need to upgrade that so we can use newer scripting.

Jeff is moving into a new/old stage in his career.... he wants to paint. In fact he has been painting, though he had to stop briefly and cancel participating in a gallery show due to residual problems from the Bell's palsy. It's geting better and I expect him to be sitting at the easel again very soon.

We're still trying to find time to work on the house and our yard, but travel and work has made that a wee bit difficult. Seems we no sooner get back from a trip, and partially caught up from the absense than we're off again to a new location. Most of the trips are work-oriented. Yeah, we have a great time on Jam Cruise, in Amsterdam, at music festivals, but they're still working trips. Burning Man is really our only non-work related trip. All of these trips are about connectivity with other like-minded individuals and groups. It's about music and vision and growth on different levels.

We get lots of emails asking about our travel schedule and lately in particular whether we will be going to the Flatstock in Chicago this year. I wrote one of my subscribers yesterday with the following in reference to that question:

I'd love to say we'll see you in Chicago, but honestly, I doubt we'll ever be able to do another Flatstock. The one in Austin is too close in timing to Langerado, the one in Seattle is too far away and conflicts with Burning Man, and the one in Chicago is sandwiched between Burning Man and Bonnaroo. Traveling with the booth is a big excursion and we aren't getting any print work done when we're out of the shop. We may even cut back further this year on our travel so we can have more art time in the shop and time to work on our house. Last year and the year before, we no sooner got back in the shop than it was time to leave again. If we have to make choices on how many trips we take, Burning Man, Amsterdam, and Jam Cruise are going to come first.

So there it is folks. While the Chicago Flatstock is a-happenin, I'll be busy getting costumes and crap together for B.R.A.T. Camp in the desert.

I'm also working steadily to clean out the studio. We purged the walls a few months back and WOW - it was like we could breathe again in here! So in light of that and the fact that we're total pack rats and have filled numerous flat files and storage rooms over the last 6 years in this building, we're taking some time to purge those as well. We've got a ton of misc. items both from our studio and the stuff we've collected over the past years that we've decided to sell. I've been slowly adding some of those items to the One Of A Kind section I put up in our web store. I'll also be selling some stuff on eBay and a few production items through the classifieds on Gigposters.

When we get the new web site going, we'll have an RSS feed that will signal when new items go up, but until then I'll just be loading stuff up as I have the time. I'll make some announcements via our newsletter to our mailing list, but the vast majority of the OOAK items will just silently make an appearance in the store. We've been asked why we don't sell test prints like some of the other poster artists, so there will probably be a few of those. I tried taking uncut sheets out with us vending last year, but they are large and I worry about damaging them in travel, so as I go through and catalog the uncuts we've been saving over the last years, I'll be adding some of the uncuts to the OOAK section.

Anyway, this has gotten long enough for one post..... I promise to start adding pictures of the studio (that's part of my work area above) here and frequent updates about new items I add to the store here.

Happy St. Pat's Day to all.....
Judy