Wednesday, December 17, 2008

veekee in designsponge and uppercase!


wow wow wow, thanks so much to design*sponge and uppercase for featuring the veekee agendas in the last couple of days! i've received some wonderful repsonses and i'm so grateful and inspired!

there's a few agendas left over on etsy. now, never fear, this is an annual project, so i'll be making a whole new set of agendas for next year and onwards basically until my fingers become arthritic and no one uses paper anymore (which will be never, i hope!).

also, stay tuned for more projects in the new year, post san fran inspiration blitz.

love,
veekee.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I <3 SF


I'm heading to San Francisco this new year's for a well-deserved break. Lucky me! Now if only I can find the time to plan my trip or even just read a guidebook I'll be set.

So this is where you come in - I've got a google map here in which I've been pinpointing my points of interest. I'd love your help in pointing out great places in SF. Bonus points for stuff not in the guidebooks. Anything goes - neat streets, great cafes, a nice place for a walk, etc. Just click on the google map link above, search and address or name, and save the point to the map....I promise to take tons of pictures in exchange!

Nikki McClure


Maybe Nikki McClure's painstaking exacto-cut-out illustrations are no secret to everyone else but they pretty much hit me over the head yesterday as I was scouting out neat places to visit on my upcoming trip to San Francisco. I'm dazzled! Tongue-tied! There's really something about the graphic simplicity of her images coupled with the precision and detail in creating them that's really refereshing in this digital, edit>undo, 10-second-epic world we're working in these days . I particularly appreciate the interrelation of her subject matter and the labour-intensive way she works.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

early century arts and crafts, where are you?

It has long been my hope that the venerable Arts and Crafts movement would return and slay the evil factories, terrible working conditions and shoddily made mass produced products of the Industrial Revolu----wait wait wait. Sound familiar? Yeah. I say it's time for Art and Crafts v. 2.0. Let's get a new William Morris and a new Josef Hofmann, but maybe they could, like, be chicks or something.

[RIVA Handkerchief by Josef Hofmann, c. 1910]

Monday, December 8, 2008

The Red Shoes - Sun Young Yoo



Hanging out at Audrey's Books this Sunday, I came across The Red Shoes, a beautifully re-imagined version of the Hans Christian Anderson tale. Sun Young Yoo's drawings feel so close to my own style I felt a little bit like my brain has been stolen! All graphic, all black and white, and all lines, all the time. Those genius designers over at AMMO even used Mrs. Eaves - swoon! Thought I'd share.

ps: in my continuing effort to spend time and support my own community, I've gotta commend Audreys for being open on a Sunday for all those downtown folks who would like to hang out in their own neighbourhood. cheers.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

veekee agendas

following a three month ordeal which you are welcome to check out on my flickr, i am pleased to announce that i have somehow managed to create 100 hand- silkscreened, vintage silk scarf bound, originally illustrated agendas with
pockets and stickers. veekee agendas can be found at Uppercase Gallery in Calgary, Nokomis in Edmonton and Propeller Clothing in Osoyoos B.C. If all else fails, you can also get them at my Etsy shop.

They were truly a labour of love. i hope you enjoy using them as much as i enjoyed picking the fabric, drawing the interior spreads, and mucking around with a silkscreen and gold paint.

xoxo,
vikki

ps- there are 50 more books which i have not covered . i'm willing to do custom orders...let me know!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Making Artistic Careers Lucrative





I got tingles down my spine tonight when I read this article from nytimes. Working in a creative field and making a living at it is the dream. Point: there's only room for a handful at the top. Indeed, few of us will become massively successful conceptual painters with solo shows at SFMOMA, but many of us have a rock solid chance of making a fulfilling career where we don't starve and can maybe afford a side trip to San Francisco without having to mortgage out your cat to fund the damn trip (ermm...). Have faith, my creative, unable-to-stomach-the-temp-job-anymore friends! You can do good work and not sell out!

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