The Spring Equinox is almost upon us and temperatures today are almost halfway to being tolerable. I’m happy to see the ice on the windows of the bsol studio start to recede.
The posters designed by Jessica and Zara made it onto the cool Portland cycle blog Trackosaurus Rex. Check it out.
In addition to the birds that live in the Yolo Wildlife Area near Davis, California millions more of every variety drop by to visit as they migrate South. The local red tail and rough leg hawks are currently hosting a huge flock of swans which is pretty cool. The photo of today is of a great horned owl captured using a revolutionary new technique that involves holding my iPhone up to the binoculars being held by my other hand and then pressing the button using mental telepathy. Not ideal but as Chase Jarvis says “The best camera is the one you have with you.” A few more photos on flickr.
Winter Solstice has been celebrated by many cultures for many thousands of years. And why not – it’s a big deal. What better occasion to gather together and find comfort in our connections with friends and family than the longest night of the year? Modern life often finds us far from our relations which is why sending a card is such a nice tradition. The time it takes to create, write and subsequently read brings us closer to one another. Granted it’s not quite the same as an all night, star-gazing, bonfire amidst the megaliths but it’s a nice bit of ceremony none the less.
So, in an effort to celebrate connections with colleagues, friends and family I’ve created the third annual, limited edition, BrainstormOverload Winter Solstice Card. Since I can’t send one to everyone I’ve linked to a pdf version of the design here. It won’t have a personalized note that way but given how I’m inclined to go on perhaps that’s best.
In the design on the front of the card each season’s solstice (or equinox) is represented by two arcs. A gray one for night and a colored one for day – the length of each being determined by the number of hours of light or darkness translated into degrees of circumference around a circle where 360 degrees signifies 12 hours. Possibly more than you wanted to know but it underscores how everything in Nature is simultaneously beautiful and meaningful. I hope it will bring a little color and connection to your evening on December 21st and that 2010 will be a beautiful and meaningful year.
We finally found a bit of time to photograph our calendar (and by “we” I mean Todd, thanks Todd!). We’re super happy with how it turned out.
Last night we did some calendar sorting and stuffing so they’re now ready for distribution. If you want one, you can find them in the shop.
Those of you who bought one earlier this week, we’re sending out a bunch this morning so they should be to you soon!
Screenprinting is FUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!! (or, our calendars are printed!)
If you were following our antics on twitter last night then you already know that printing our calendar went swimmingly.
If you weren’t, here’s a little recap of our night:
We’s a’printin’
A nice pile of white
Colleen uses twitter for the first time to say: Screenprinting is FUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Colleen pulls her first print. Awesome.
And we’re done! Check out the paper forest
We had a great time printing the calendar, it’ll be trimmed and sorted this weekend and then be ready to go out to you guys should you want to buy one.
How Very Fortunate - 2010 edition
It’s finally here! Well, almost. Tonight we’ll be printing our 2010 redblackbrown calendar and we’re really excited to share it with you!
Once again we descended upon Asian restaurants in Minneapolis in search of sweet fortune cookie goodness that we could use to inspire each of our months. I think we found some good ones this year.
This year’s calendar will be screenprinted in dark brown and white on cover weight kraft paper. It comes with a cd-case stand (just like last year’s) for easy display. The size is: 4.65 w” x 5.4” h
We’re printing tonight, so we’ll have real pictures soon but you can get a feel for what the months will look like here.
Also, because we realize time is ticking and everyone is itching to get their holiday shopping done, the calendar is now available for presale in our Shop. We’ll ship out all presale orders early next week so they will arrive in plenty of time for wrapping and giving.