Paper, wonderful paper.

I currently have copious amounts of glorious, glorious paper. Paper is the only thing I enjoy shopping for in person. Otherwise, I'd much rather shop online. But paper... I can paper-shop for hours (as evidenced by today's 30-min errand that became a 2 hour paper-shopping extravaganza). I cannot accurately describe how much I like touching every open-stock stack and comparing every shade of cream or burgundy and every texture. To make it even better, my two paper stores are right across the street from each other. It doesn't get much better than that when it comes to picking out new paper.

Anyway, had to share. I'll have photos of new cards very soon, but until then, here's the final version of the Anatomic Valentine cards. I went with the burgundy because it had the best combination of writeability (if that's a word -- I liked the navy, but it would be too dark to write in without a gel pen) and contrast with the ink. And it just seemed right. I also upsized them to A2 size, which shows off the design a little more. You can buy them here: CarlyBodnar.com/shop or carlybodnar.Etsy.com.

Good: A [new local] Gallery

I have to share this brand new (not even open yet) gallery for the simple fact of it's ingenuity of venue and general portlandiness. All over Portland are houses with these little 1-car garage structures out front. Some are kind of half-buried in lawn, sometimes. Most of them look very out-dated, often run-down, and useless. You would have a hard time fitting anything larger than a compact car in them, after all. Some have had the garage-style door -- on structures like this, the door is the single wood panel type that you have to heft up, with a spring to assist you if it's not totally rusted -- taken off entirely and a normal door put in. When we were looking at houses to buy, I had always categorized these little urban outbuildings as a possible studio space for myself. The people at Good, however, have made theirs into a gallery, with a cute little window box. i had never even thought of that idea, but it makes perfect sense. Assuming that it's the garage on your own house, overhead is super low, and the commute is nil. Most galleries go out of business because they can't make the sales pay up the rent/lease for their space, but this arrangement sidesteps that problem.

I'm looking forward to this space opening, and wish them the best of luck.

New Painting, as yet untitled

Finished up one of the paintings that's been on the wall for too long. (I have to make room to start new work.) It's about 4 ft tall by 2 or 2.5 ft wide. Not sure what to call it -- been struggling with that the whole time I've been working on it. It's "about" multiple unrelated things. Don't want to pin it down too specifically with a title. Worth looking at the larger view. Better pictures to come later.