I have a bunch of new creatures for the folks to see this weekend – I also have a hefty pile of curated thrift & vintage in the Goth Closet, which will be in a bin to rummage through to your heart’s content.
Misfits x fake fur vest is going to be up for $75, and is not part of the Goth Closet. I am bringing some work in progress pieces too! If you happen to visit me, I might ask you your opinion, ask you who your fave Aqua Teen Hunger Force lil guy is…but no pressure. I’m just genuinely curious about what my faire friends think! I may also sell some of the bigger leather jacket art as patches in the future, so let me know your thoughts. I’d also love to know if folks would pay $5 to have a patch sewed onto their battle vest, etc! If enough folks want to, I’ll bring my sewing machine to fairs & do some sewing for my friends without sewing machines or sewing skillz. If you wanna learn to sew, also let me know! Maybe we’ll host a skillz class at Flemington DIY or something!
OK, so apologies for not posting in a bit! Between my new job, some volunteering, and a fairly hectic schedule of craft shows, I’ve been running at full speed for awhile. (Silently, or almost.) I am trying to be better about this, ha ha.
I am rapidly expanding into secondhand clothing, as well as thrift store junk/collectibles as my base materials, because of how shitty the fast fashion industry is, basically. I know that every generation hears the “things were better quality when I was young!” wheeze from older folks (me), but for real for real things WERE better quality! Like, a LOT BETTER! And that is how I am showing up for the younger folks, by not just complaining. I am searching out the better quality thrift store items – better quality & better types of fabrics, and up cycling them. The reason I started making D&D-themed stuff from junk was that most of us don’t have access to cool & interesting stuff reflecting our interests. Hell, I’m making a lighted displacer beast accent lamp and tavern signs and Cthulhu/lighthouse lamps….stuff you won’t see anywhere else.
….and if I made it, you won’t see an exactly identical one again. I won’t make 100% new things – we have enough in the world. I am just gonna make my critters out of whatever I can find. And it’s hugely satisfying, and challenging, and fun. AND it keeps stuff out of landfill.
On that note! I am bringing the Goth Closet back to Lunar Faire on the 27th! Since it’s Promiversary (5th year anniversary of LF but ALSO…a GOTH PROM!), I have pulled out all my black clothing that has not yet been upcycyled so it can be added to your fit while you’re at the faire! All items in the Goth Closet are $20. This is a little service I like to provide since I come from the pre-Hot Topic goth generation, where we mostly shopped vintage & made our own clothes, until we got old enough to take the train into NYC & shop in the East Village. I also worked for a couple of years on East 7th st. for a pair of fashion designers, and I walked past the celebrated Manic Panic, Trash & Vaudeville, and Patricia Fields every day on the way to work. I have several years of experience at a NYC vintage store & met stylists & designers all the time. So! If you’re looking to be goth in the summertime, and dislike melting, I have some black linen for you! If you are gonna wear lace come hell or high water, I got you.
Outside the Goth Closet, a new addition! A black fake fur shortie vest with a massive Misfits patch (that is silvery!) on the back! OK, so this one won’t be $20, and you might have to fight a couple of people to get to it first, but I think it’s one in a million. I hate being hot, so there’sno way I am wearing this.
Oh, that reminds me. For those of you who are younger - you don't HAVE to stop being DIY/punk/goth, etc. I've been the way I am for decades & while I definitely can tone it down to work among the normals, I've never lost my love of fishnets and black eyeliner, buckle boots, velvet dresses, corsets, and lace. Or just wearing head to toe black. I am sitting here in the stupid hot weather right now wearing huge black rat earrings & a dyed black linen sundress, and I wore it just for me. So, be YOU. Be free. Who cares if other people think it's a phase? The DIY/punk/goth people I have met are the most interesting, caring, and creative people around, and that's not an accident. Be happy, be awesome, and be assured that it's NOT a phase. You WERE born this way, and I celebrate you.
July & August will slow down a bit – the biggest July show will be the Summa Sizzla at the convention center in Edison on the 26th, from 10-5. Because I’ll have some time to spend working on new pieces, you can expect a bigger batch of new creatures at that show, and then ramping up as the holidays get closer. I don’t have any Lunar Faire shows in July, because I’m a big baby who can’t handle summer heat well, and that’s just the truth. In the fall, I’ll also be showing up at the Frenchtown Farmer’s Market a few times! I love Frenchtown. The delightful Casa Bizarro is there, and you can find some of my work there, year-round. I don’t think I could find a cooler town to have my stuff in. And Casa Bizarro is spectacular. The owner is a gem, and her assistant is too. And there’s a super chill dog named Vincy.
Inventory-wise: some of the crowd favorites have gone to new homes this year! I am delighted, but I also miss them. Here’s a lil summary of who has been adopted lately:
Yawning Portal sign (see pic above)
Raven’s Infusium (the dragon-faced shop that changes colors with the temperature):
Underdark Portal (100% made from trash/recyclables):
OK, that’s all from me now, in the sweltering darkness. Hope to see y’all at a Faire or fair soon!
Was great to be back at the Cure Arena for a New Jersey Punk Rock Flea Market event after almost 4 years! Last time was during Covid, and we were all in the parking lot. In August. This was much more comfy!
The next show is going to be purely originals – no TTRPG minis will be at the Green Fair in Frenchtown, but I will be bringing more hand-printed patches, and the first clothes I’ve worked on for many years! Pretty excited about that. They’ll also be hosting a Buy Nothing tent at that event, so if you are local, be sure to check that out!
Ok, not that exactly. I am thinking about how everyday objects are precious in reality, but we have all been trained not to see them that way. Once upon a time, a bottle was as precious as the milk inside it, a dress was as precious as the paper and box it came in to keep it safe. We kept everything. Just everything. Every spare nail or screw, even, because it meant one less task to do or money to spend.
Somewhere along the way, saving things for reuse was conflated with hoarding, disorganization, being cheap/stingy, and that is a shame. We have fully lost our wonder at the miracle of everyday objects. I got into the mindset at the thrift store yesterday, as I looked at the enormous store and all it had to offer. There were tools that revolutionized a farmer’s workday a hundred years ago next to an impossibly tall pile of slender LED worklights. There were the dumbest kitchen towels I have ever seen in my life, next to a staggering pile of stir fry pans/woks. A pressure cooker that looked like it would almost certainly decorate your ceiling for you – with soup.
We take all of this wonder for granted because we’re supposed to move on to the next thing we want/need. We have been trained on a daily basis that we are here to acquire, not to rest, not to reuse, and definitely not to recycle.
One of the things I think about when making one of my pieces is that it has to be precious, far more precious than the thrift store item it began its life as. Otherwise there is no point. I am by no means trying to get wealthy off this art, and couldn’t anyway, but I want the price to make you stop and think – is it really that important to me? Does it capture something that is so unique that I need to pay this price for it? Every single item is one of a kind – there will never be another one, ever. And I rejoice a little, in thinking that a monster and a human have formed a bond, and that the bond is durable, and that monster won’t end up at the thrift store because someone really came to love it.
I have been reading Lab Girl by Hope Jahren via audiobook, and if you haven’t heard her read her work, get it. Your library should have it, so it won’t cost you anything. But it will bring some wonder back into how you look at the world.
Back to my original point though. I found a lot of good things at the thrift store. Things so I can make my sales table displays taller and more interesting, things to help transport my art to shows, and things that are so silly, so ugly, so broken, that I can’t leave them behind. They have a kernel of greatness in them. Somewhere, way deep in there, they were made by human hands. And if we discount the day to day work that humans hands do, what do we have left?
This very cool venue for NJ Darkside Market is one of more awesome breweries I’ve seen. They were like if Magic Hat up in Burlington, VT had more space for visitors/tap room, and also had a wicked sense of humor.
I met a lot of really great people while vending, and have to give a shout out to all of them. You made our night! But there is one young DM who bought my small Dread Gazebo, and I promised to share the full story with him, and what better way than to post it here for others as well. It’s a silly bit of old tabletop gaming lore and being made fun of by your besties.
Eric and the Dread Gazebo
In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran âhis gameâ, and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer. Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Edâs game. He was on some lordâs lands when the following exchange occurred:
ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo. ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it? ED: [pause] Itâs white, Eric. ERIC: How far away is it? ED: About 50 yards. ERIC: How big is it? ED: [pause] Itâs about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top. ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it. ED: Itâs not good, Eric. Itâs a gazebo. ERIC: [pause] I call out to it. ED: It wonât answer. Itâs a gazebo. ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way? ED: No, Eric, itâs a gazebo! ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened? ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it. ERIC: [pause] Wasnât it wounded? ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! ITâS A GAZEBO! ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow! ED: Itâs a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I donât know why anybody would even try. Itâs a @#$%!! gazebo! ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away. ED: [thoroughly frustrated] Itâs too late. Youâve awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you. ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe Iâll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasnât on a grassy gnoll. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A little vocabulary is a dangerous thing.
âEric and the Gazeboâ was written and copyrighted by me in 1986. It was based on an event at a role-playing game, but the addition of several jokes moves it out of journalism, or at least into Docuhumor. Some of the people at the game retold the event, each with their own spin, but I was the one who told it to Lee Gold, editor of the fanzine âAlarums and Excursions,â who insisted I print it up for her. After reprinting in several amateur publications, it leapt to âThe Mensa Bulletin.â I then foolishly allowed a reader to reprint it on the internet (who knew from internet in 1989). For many years his was the only interent reprint which even mentioned that there was a copyright on it (thanks, James Chu). Eventually I became a professional game designer for Sierra On-Line and the late lamented âImagiNation Networkâ and after having been accused of stealing my own story at a gaming convention I have spend several hours every year protecting my copyright, especially since I incorporated E&tG into a chapter of my as yet unpublished novel. â â Richard Aronson, Feb 15, 2000
I am SO tired! This ended up being a full week of market prep (including creating 2 new pieces when I should have been writing up pricing). Earlier in the week, my brilliant friend and fellow creative, Shannon, helped me get my logo burned in to a weird lil display for the booth:
And I have a small set of tags with the logo on as well! The car is fully loaded up for tomorrow, and it should be a really amazing time. The vendors don’t always have the best view of the music stage, it depends a lot on where you get assigned, but I’m gonna try and get out to see what the burlesque show is like because it looks SICK!
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