Renaissance Art

One forecaster called for an inch of snow…we got eight : )

LaShanda, JenMarie and Ariel be in a little later today…or maybe tomorrow…

(p.s. for those who like songs with harp, Joanna Newsom has a new album out today from Drag City Records. Catch the free stream of the entire album on NPR…good in the sun or the snow)

And one more thing…for those of you in the Tucson-area, there will be great poetry readings this Friday and Saturday at Casa Libre en la Solana. Camille Dungy will be leading a workshop there and reading with Niki Herd Saturday night. Our very own JenMarie and a slew of others will be reading Friday night.

For those of you who think that Santa Fe never sees snow:

Santa Fe is actually located about 2,000 feet ABOVE Denver. And we are over 1,000 feet higher in the city than in the Pojoaque Valley where the Renaissance Art studio is. So the three artisans that live in Santa Fe proper and carpool the 25-minute commute to work together have a delay!

Well… I guess that is a wedding vow but it also applies to us when it comes to shipping out orders on time.

As some of you know, we are a really small company… five employees plus Kristel and Artbeast (that’s me).  So, when 2 people are sick the same day, that is almost half our work force.  LaShanda has an absyssed tooth and Larry… well, without going into too much detail, he is feeling just plain miserable.  That was yesterday.  LaShanda is here today making bags for you all.  It looks like she has some chew in her mouth but that is still that same tooth giving her trouble.  And… even though she wants to laugh, she can’t.  So why did she come in today?  That woman just loves making bags for everyone.

So, if we are a bit slow this week please excuse us.  We are workin on it

I wrapped up Giveaway 20 today and am conjeuring up another.

JenMarie just started working for us a week ago. She will be the assistant of Artbeast, that’s me, probably do some writing on this blog and the newsletter (yes… finally a regular newsletter will be going out) and helping me to keep on trac with designing, producing and getting all the new product stuff we have here on the site.

You can read her bio HERE or by clicking on the JenMarie link on the right side of this page.
Have a look-see of her website too.  It is called Fact-Simile Editions and you can get to it HERE.

So… say Hi to JenMarie.

Btw… in the coming weeks you will see bios of the rest of us being put up… thanks to JenMarie

Beneath the well fed exterior of this friendly looking man lies some medieval madness and the spirit of a warrior.  Today at 2 in the afternoon, Mountain Time, Larry will be putting his talents to work auditioning for the Santa Fe Opera as a spear carrier. 

Let’s all wish Larry a broken leg… or however they say that good luck thing in the acting world.

You can read more about Larry HERE.

The Asus Eee may be an ultra portable laptop… lightweight… all that good stuff.  But this is one mean, heafty, overbuilt bag and it is lookin for trouble.

We let our employees use our studio on their own time to create their own inventions.  In this case, a former employee, Allin, came over on Saturday morning and left very late Sunday evening.  (Well, he did go home for a nap in between).  This was his invention for the brand new Asus Eee he just purchased.  While Allin is no Harley rider, he does get on his motor scooter from time to time and this is what he will be carrying his new Asus Eee in.

Weighing in at about 5 pounds (that includes the massive shoulder strap), this bag sports a separate compartment for the Asus Eee and another larger compartment for your other goodies.  There is also a rear pocket on the outside.

You might be wondering, can I buy one?  If you have $800 and about a month to have one made for you, then the answer is yes.  The accent color, shown here as an rusty orange, is available in other colors as well… avocado, red and ocean (a kind of tourqoiseie blue but richer).  We do have more pictures so if you are interested, let us know and we will send some out to you.

At first glance, you may think that this pleasant fellow won the gorgeous leather pillow in his hands. Au contraire, he is actually the artist who made it. Meet Larry, one of the talented craftspeople who works at Renaissance Art.

Larry started at Renaissance Art in November of 2006, around the same time as Ellen, and he primarily works on book covers in the downstairs area of the studio. Prior to joining the Renaissance Art team, he was a finisher at the Santa Fe’s own Barn Boys, where he worked on custom screen doors (locals will understand immediately – the rest will have to visit Santa Fe to experience the wonder of the screen door). When Barn Boys closed up shop in 2006, Larry thankfully brought his skills to our studio.

Larry has a storied background – with an MFA in Theatre, he is a talented designer with a long history in the arts, and he in particular loves the opera. Originally from the East Coast, he thought he escaped from winter forever by moving to San Francisco; however, in 2004, during a visit to Santa Fe with his partner, Larry fell in love with the area and has embraced (well, maybe that’s too strong a word) the frosty season again in order to live in his dream home.

Larry is an incredibly warm and funny guy, and his open and welcoming attitude is quite infectious. We’re even enthusiastic about his side projects, two stores on ebay that sells rare and antique items. If you’re even in the mood for rare postcards, visit Lord Dudley’s Postcard Emporium, and for all other kinds of antiques, check out Old and Funky Thangs.

What’s next for Larry? Well, he has an enormous cowhide sofa in his guest house that’s been named ‘Elsie’ - and it may be time for some more pillows. We know he’s gathered up plenty of scraps…

Yesterday, April 1st, was Allin’s birthday!

Being born on April Fool’s Day must bring year after year of setups for him, and we have to admit we were not above taking advantage of it. But you will need to ask Allin about that.

Even on a ‘normal’ day, we try to make birthdays at Renaissance art a little more than a sheet cake with lettering. The night before, Kristel and Arthur prepared dessert; Kristel made her amazing NY cheesecake and Arthur made coffee ice cream. The day of the party Arthur rotisseried a chicken, made some mashed potatoes and gravy. Delicious!

And yes, even with an overloaded stomach, everyone still does a top-notch job here at Renaissance Art. We like to keep our craftspeople happy, so that the stuff they make comes to you with happy karma.

Of course you would. This is Allin, one of Renaissance Art’s amazing employees. We’re a small group here, so each and every one of us plays a big part, and since Allin’s arrival in mid-September, 2007, he has immediately become an invaluable member of the family.

Allin has a varied background, with extensive experience in metalwork. For the last five years, he has worked at a manufacturer for hand tools for wood workers; from being a machinist to heading R+D for new products, he’s come to leatherwork with some incredible skills.

But what’s more impressive about Allin is his point of view. We posed a question a few posts ago about methods of jumping into the first entry of a journal. Allin’s advice is to approach journaling from moment to moment – don’t memorialize the first page, and go at it as though you’ve been doing it forever. That’s his approach to his work as well. For Allin, the task at hand is what’s important, and he focuses on every step when working on a Renaissance Art product – that’s why every detail of the finished product is of such high quality.

While we’d like to say he’s modeling some of Renaissance Art’s Spring Couture, what you see Allin wearing is an example of some of the amazing things our employees make with scraps. This is a leather apron he made for his father for this past Christmas. He says he has a big box of scraps collected already – we’re very excited to see what he comes up with next.

One a side note, we’re extra happy to be blogging about Allin today because it’s actually his birthday - no foolin’. We’re having a birthday lunch today, so we’ll update later with some pics!

Many people write to us wondering what happens to the scraps of leather that are left over after we make a journal. Good question. We do end up with quite a few orphaned pieces of leather that are either too small, oddly shaped, and are just not suitable for products for public consumption.

Now there’s always the Charlie Chaplin method of disposing (or digesting?) leather, but some of our staff have come up with ingenious ways of using leather scraps to create some unique objects. We’re excited to show them to you on our blog and think you’ll agree that they’re much better alternatives to chowing down on hide and chasing it with some Pepto.

(But then again, this raises the question - are our journals good enough to eat?)

This week, we present Larry and his creation, a leather pillow. You would hardly know that this was made from scraps. (Click on the thumbnails for larger pics!)

Last week, we said goodbye to one of our beloved employees, Ellen, who is moving on from Renaissance Art and… in fact, the state… the country… as well as the continent. Before you think we scared her out of here, let it be known that Ellen recently got her one-year work/travel Visa from Australia approved. Or so she says.

Ellen came to us in 2006 after she graduated from Northern Illinois U. with a degree in art. After a short stint in Starbucks, she chose Renaissance Art over a fancy gallery in town – she says it came down to the fact that her nephew Oscar has the same name as one of our dogs!

Though she may look as small as an Ooompa-Loompa in the picture below (and you may try to imagine what she looks like making a latte in a Starbucks cup), Ellen is actually preparing one of our Books of Unusual Size (BOUS) – a 16 x 16 behemoth. She also looks very overwhelmed here, but she insists that working at Renaissance is not at all stressful, but also meditative.

We miss her and will continue to miss her while she pursues her new adventures in the outback. Ellen, please send us updates, and the first pictures of you when you Hang Ten through one of those tubes (yes, we had to google those terms)!