Once, I Made a Good Choice

It's always refreshing (and novel) to realize that something you did in the past turned out to be a good idea. God knows it doesn't happen very often. But I've been editing photos from a batch of embroidered t-shirts I've been working on, and I'm finding it profoundly fucking tedious. Now I'm having the chance to be very grateful that I never decided to go into graphic design, as I've considered at several points in the past, usually when I was feeling conflicted and unsure about my abilities and inspiration. I can see that I'd be driven absolutely ship rat nuts if I had to spend my life "staring every morning at a hundred nearly identical photographs of moodily lit tubes of toothpaste", to quote Douglas Adams.

I still have to spend a certain amount of time staring at nearly identical photographs of moodily lit t-shirts and pieces of jewelry, but since I'm the one taking them, there are usually only a dozen or so, and I don't have to do it every day. Then there's the copy writing, which is whole different kettle of suck, and always leaves me feeling stupid and slightly unclean, though I'm finding it's getting easier. I'm learning to set aside my dignity and self-respect and compunctions, and just write some nonsensical blather so I can post the shit. If I could get away with labeling everything "Oh just buy it already, you know it's awesome", believe me, I would. (And I'm thinking that should be my tagline when I go global. Actually, I have gone global; my first sale was to someone in France, and I also had a sale to Australia.)

The actual making of stuff is the fun part, naturally, not at all like work. Embroidering or putting together something while listening to music or audiobooks and drinking tea, and then later getting real live money for what I've made is still pretty miraculous to me. Not a lot of money, but I've sold several things this month. I really dig the series of minimalist punk portraits I've been working on lately. Who knows if anybody else will like them, but I'm enjoying doing them. Above are the Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone shirts I've got completed. I've also finished a Richard Hell one for myself, though I don't know if I'll make one of those for general consumption, I'm not sure how popular it'd be. Yeah, in comparison to the unbounded popularity of everything else I've been making. (Well, the Mark Twain bacon embroidery actually was pretty popular. Gotta get another one made soonest.) It would be nice if these really did take off, because I have several other ideas for the designs. I think they'd be awesome on onesies, for a start.

Like this guy was. He's the one who went to France. (If I think about that too much it's mind-boggling.) I'm really just putting him up here to show off the sheer technical perfection of the french knot that makes his eye. I realize no one but me cares, but that is a textbook fucking example of a french knot and I think it should be noted. So it is.