Renaissance Art

We think that people are happier, make better things and put better vibes into their work when they have full stomachs.  So, we have Muffin Days at Renaissance Art.  About once every week (although sometimes he slacks off), Arthur makes doctored up TJ’s green tea muffins. Here is the recipe.  One box of  Trader Joe’s Green Tea Muffin Mix, about 1/3 bag of Trader Joe’s Northwest frozen blueberries (the fat ones) and about one handful of Trader Joe’s organic pecan pieces.  Mix it all up according to the directions on the box.  If you are at 7000 feet above sea level like we are, use just over 1 cup of water.  Then add the frozen blueberries (while they are still frozen) and the pecan pieces…  mix them in, fill the muffin pans and bake.  It makes 9 muffins in our size pan.  The top will be muffin crunchy and the bottom nice and moist… and all of the stuff you get from us will be made by happy hands.Now how would you doctor up your muffin?   Write us with your favorite recipes. (Perhaps that’s a dangerous question to ask.)

We put a lot of importance on our local involvement in the Pojoaque Valley – we both live and work here, and coming to support the wonderful community has just been a natural progression. They say, ‘give and get back’, but we would never have expected what happened yesterday.

Last December, the local volunteer fire department held a fund raiser – a delicious pot luck and silent auction – which we attended. At the event, we met the owner of the Santa Fe New Mexican, the local newspaper, and a couple of weeks ago we were contacted by a staff reporter at the owner’s request. We arranged a time for the reporter to come over to the studio, and we had a pleasant conversation about the journey of Renaissance Art.

Yesterday, a local artist emailed us to welcome us to the area – after reading the about us in the Santa Fe New Mexican. We quickly checked online and found the delightfully written story, but that’s not all we got.

The story is mostly correct. It says that our studio is 28,000 square feet, which is about half an acre. In reality, the studio is 2,800 square feet if you count the loft and the two 45 foot balconies. Our reporter got carried away with his zeros, but in the process, we got ten times more square footage than we actually have. Though we know the truth, it still sounds pretty cool.

But then again, now that were thinking about it, if you figure in the pool, the raised flagstone patio area surrounded by a pergola with climbing wisteria and roses, the new garden area, pottery and workout area our employees have access to… then it might be about half an acre total.

Extra zeroes are nice - we’re hoping for some on the good ol’ tax return…

Click here to read the article in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

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…

Happy Tax Day from everyone at Renaissance Art.  If you’re not bleary eyed from filling out forms, tired from being on line at the Post Office, tightening your belt a little bit more, or just took the day off to sulk, we have one question - how did you do it?

Did you make any interesting observations about today in your journal?  We’d love to get feedback or funny anecdotes or sketches from your Tax Day.

At Renaissance Art, we like to think we are good listeners. As you may know, we sometimes develop new products inspired by your comments but even more often, we will customize an existing product just to get it even closer to perfection.

Some people may order a closure for one item they saw that is not offered on the one that they want. Others may ask to have a different paper stock we carry to go into their journal. Lefties often want the insides of an item flipped, and we received a request yesterday to put one of our Circa Cover stud closure and Writer’s Satchel removable pen wrap into their Custom Laptop Bag.

We put all of the above into the ‘tweak’ category. We do our best to accommodate most tweaks (if they are physically possible!) and much of the time, we do it for free or at a low cost. If it makes our products more useful, or gives our customers the satisfaction of getting the exact product they envisioned, then we feel we’re doing our job right.

Sometimes, we’ll take on custom jobs. A Canadian company came to us with a need for a leather reservation binder that would hold 21w x 9-1/2h inch sheets of paper. It needed to have the rings on the 21 inch side and guess what… nobody makes rings for that size sheet. So, we MacGuyver-ed it, putting 2 rings side by side together and bound them with a hard cover. The result was a binder that would finally hold their sheets. It had an overall size of 23 x 13 inches and looked like this:

So next time you’re looking through our website to purchase one of our many products, remember that you can ask us to tweak it to match your tastes and needs. Don’t be shy about asking. Who knows, we may even feature your creation on our blog.

Have a great weekend!

View the products mentioned in the blog:

Writer’s Satchel
http://www.renaissance-art.com/Prod141/Product.aspx

Custom Laptop Bags
http://www.renaissance-art.com/catg135/categoryMaster.aspx

Circa Covers
http://www.renaissance-art.com/catg142/category.aspx

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!

While we’d love to say that each and every one of our products jumps off of Zeus’ brow and into your hands, we do work pretty hard to get them from concept to finished product. Welcome to the first of our series ‘Step by Step’, which will detail the Research and Development period that goes on in the studio of Renaissance Art.

Our first featured product is a new bag we’re about to launch – inspired by conversations with a storyboard artist who contacted us about making something to carry his Circa/Rollabind books. After several months of discussions and some time to let the ideas settle, Arthur was inspired to sit down and start, and using his new Alias Sketchbook program he quickly sketched this:

The basic idea was to construct something with access to writing and drawing tools, but also have an additional case/bag that could be attached to it or carried on its own. Thus, different bags holding different tools dedicated to different things could be attached to one book without the need of unpacking and repacking the bag. Also, for guys, we thought it would be a nice option to have your book and all your other tools in a more generic bag rather than what is now known as the ‘man-purse’.

After prototyping, patterning and making templates for about 6 months we finally had this:

We’ll continue to go more in depth into this bag, and hopefully you’ll have an extra appreciation for it by the time it is on sale on our website in a few weeks. Keep checking back to find out more about our journey to the final product.

Capturing a memory has become instantaneous and available to anyone these days – via pocket sized digital cameras to fully loaded cellular phones, the process has become so convenient, it’s also in danger of becoming forgettable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve downloaded my photos onto a computer and lost them among hundreds of shots.

The magic of drawing and sketching into a journal is that it makes you active. Whatever you choose to sketch is ultimately a part of you – you’re the lens, the filter, and the hand that makes a piece of art more than just an accurate depiction. You give it a soul.

That’s what we notice most from the pictures (yes, digital – we’re not knocking it) of the sketches we get from Renaissance Art customers. While the talent and technique are apparent, it’s what lies underneath – the choice to sketch a particular thing, the attempt to capture what inspired them to start, and the patience to finish the act – that is striking.

There’s still something so raw about sketching. By the time it gets to the paper, so many ideas, thoughts and emotions are imbued within the work. It’s not about the accuracy, and it’s not about the resolution. It’s truly about capturing one’s imagination.

The title sketch at the top of this post is from Sherry Berger, who sent us a link to her online portfolio HERE. Click on ‘Travel Sketches’ to view her work. Below, a couple of pictures of sketches from Steven Kidwell, VP of Design, Chippenhook.   Paper used in both book is our Arches Text Wove 120gsm 100% cotton rag paper.  We’ll be sharing more stunning work from our customers in the coming months.

It may look ordinary, but it’s not your great grandmother’s sewing machine. This Adler 205-320 Cylinder Arm Saddle is the Big Daddy of three sewing machines we use – and there’s a reason we use it 98% of the time. With a triple feed mechanism and a maximum stitch length of 1/4 inch, it’s the real workhorse of the studio.

We purchased this Adler about five years ago when Arthur’s Mountainsmith cordura fanny pack broke. When he couldn’t find a suitable replacement, we decided to just get our own sewing machine and start making our own bags (sound familiar?). We also use the machine to sew up all of our book covers, bags, moleskine products, menus and some custom products. (NOTE: All of our journals are HAND STITCHED with needles and thread.)

The advantage of this heavy-duty machine is that it guarantees maximum durability and a solid aesthetic. The heavy thread we use gives our products a hand-sewn look and superior strength. The triple feed mechanism sews any material that goes through here in three different ways to ensure an even stitch length and that there is no slipping.

In the title picture, you can see the large flywheel on the right. This is where the motor connects to the machine by means of a belt, much like the fan belt in your car. Weighing 10 pounds, the flywheel gives plenty of momentum to provide smooth stitching when the needle travels through multiple layers (up to 1 inch) of leather. The handle just to the left of the flywheel controls forward and reverse. All the way to the left is where the needle is housed, and the pressure foot is raised and lowered by the handle on the top left. But we have a pedal on the floor for that also.

As you can see in this next photo (click the thumbnail for a bigger version), the needle and bobbin are huge. The needle has twice the diameter of a paper clip and is almost as long as a Bic lighter. The bobbin has a one-inch diameter and is housed in the shuttle for sewing.

For all those home sewers who frequently poke their finger on their home machine, this is not a needle to get close to. At a top speed of 600 stitches per minute it will effortlessly sew right through your bone. Arthur, Kristel, LaShanda and Allin all work on this machine, and they can all attest to how carefully they use it in order to save their fingers.

In this next photo, you can see the machine and how the cylinder arm hangs over the table. This helps when sewing bags because the bulk of the bag hangs over the table as you stitch the edge. Those two spools of thread on the top right? They are two pounds each. One is for the machine and the other for winding bobbins.

This next picture is of the shuttle assembly. This is where the bobbin thread and the top thread get all tied together and make the stitch. Various screws and dials here and on the machine control how tight the stitch gets. It’s good to mention now that there are about 24 places to oil this machine, all of which gets oiled once a week. The shuttle itself gets a drop of oil every 2 or 3 bobbins - on average, we go through about 6 or 7 bobbins daily. When working on a large order for menus or binders or a large custom order, we can go through 30 bobbins in a single day. Granted, they do not hold much because of the heavy thread we use - one bobbin can sew 3-1/2 to 4 shoulder straps for a bag before it runs out.

We do require our people to train on this machine extensively before using it for production. How? By having them make leather coasters. By sewing two pieces of square leather, they learn how to sew straight, use the guide, how to start, stop and control the machine as well as mastering how to do nice, neat corners. Afterwards, they can put a stiff drink on the coaster (that they get to keep, of course) and celebrate keeping all of their fingers.

Next time you look at the large stitches on our products, think of Big Daddy, and pray we don’t stick our fingers!

P.S. Happy Easter, everyone!

Now we’ve mentioned before that the paper we use in Renaissance Art travel journals are watercolor friendly - from the photos sent in by our customers, you can certainly see that. We use Arches Text Wove paper, which is 120gsm (that’s the weight of paper) and 100% cotton rag. For those not familiar with paper stock, anything over 160gsm is considered card stock - 120gsm is the highest quality printing paper you can get.

While we try to provide our customers the best canvas for their in-journal art, we certainly cannot claim any responsibility for their artistic talent. Take Dr. Neil Watson, for example. He’s been using Renaissance Art leather journals for about 7 years, and as you can see from the picture above, his art nearly flies off the page.  Neil likes using heavier w/c and Gouache washes on our paper.  He says that when using heavier washes the paper will become wavy but then flattens out again when it dries.

Dr. Watson hails from Britain, where he was a hand surgeon for two decades before moving to the U.S. in the late 1980’s. He’s been making and teaching art ever since, and has even published four books. Here’s a couple of more pictures of his artwork below (click on the thumbnails), and his website is more than worth a visit - read about his fascinating life, and admire his breathtaking watercolors.

Check out: www.neilwatsonart.com

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!)

Just a little over a week into the new Renaissance-Art blog, and we’ve said farewell to an employee, had a celebrity sighting, and woke up nearly buried in snow. Who knows what to expect this week? We hope you’re enjoying the glimpse of the behind the scenes here in the studio - we promise to show you much more of the goings on here, from staff profiles to the step by step process of designing a new product.

One of the things we love sharing is the feedback we get from many of you. This week, we offer an e-mail from William Polm, all the way from sunny Southern California. Be sure to check out his Flickr page that shows off his great watercolor work. More on our paper quality another time, but you rest assured that our journals can handle watercolors and make them look as vibrant as William’s.

————————-

From: William Polm
To: feedback@renaissance-art.com
Subject: Feedback

Hi guys,
3 days from ordering my book cover to receiving it this morning. Even with my 3rd day Fedex shipping, that’s fast!
The craftsmanship is, as always, superb. Beautiful leather, flawless sticking, and the amazing fit is perfect. What a joy it will be now to carry around my book!

I am over halfway through my third refill in the 9×12″ size. In it I’ve done watercolor paintings, pencil drawings, fountain pen personal journaling, and also I’ve glued and taped a few mementos, souvenirs, here and there. I took this size with me during my travels to 2 watercolor workshops and 1 visit to Kings Canyon National park to record my experiences last June. Actually, I also have the 5.5×8.5 size refill type journal (with wrap around cover), which I like best for sketching. I can remember sketching several times on the banks of the South Fork of the Kings River. (In case you’re interested, you can see one of these here: Third row down from the top, 4th from the left). That refill is almost completed now, all outdoor sketches.

I have painted watercolors at least 150 times on the Arches Text Wove paper, even acrylics a bit, and have written and drawn with fountain pen ink. The paper is almost magical with watercolors; they turn out lovely. And it takes ink with no problems of leakage through to the other side at all, with normal use.

What a feeling of quality your journals give to my artistic efforts.
Congrats and thanks for lovely, highest quality products.

Bill, retired, watercolorist, Southern California

P.S. Just in case, anything you might wish to use from the above words on your website, feel free.
I do frequently “spread the word” about your products, when I can, to other artists on the forums I participate in.

A little food for creative thoughts for the weekend.

Whether you’ve on your first, tenth, or hundredth journal, the anticipation of starting anew is both exciting and a little daunting.

From my own experience, an incredible amount of thought goes into the first entry. When I untie the strap and open up my own leather bound journal to the first page, making that first mark, whether it’s the first letter of a work, or the first stroke of a sketch, I feel a moment of incredible clarity and understanding – “I am starting to make something.”

It’s my favorite moment. But then, sometimes, I sit there, and the page remains blank – what if the first mark I make soils, rather than inspires? Stops rather than encourages? This book is too nice to write in! It can be a little much. So as much as we love receiving pictures of journals that are filled to the brim with riveting images and inspiring text, we’d love to hear…

How do you start? Email us or leave a comment below…

When March rolls around at Renaissance Art, we start getting ready for our Spring Pool Party. Preparations include buying snacks, decorative elements, sun screen, and plenty of ice for drinks of course. Spring time is mild and warm here in Santa Fe, anywhere between the high 50’s to the low 70’s – just perfect.

Turns out our planning was a little premature for good ol’ 2008. Imagine our surprise when we woke up this morning and ran outside in our bathing suits to find - you guessed it - SNOW. Last night, it snowed a gorgeous FOURTEEN inches. That’s how much is on this pool chair.

Okay, we weren’t wearing our bathing suits at 7 in the morning (at least not today), but knowing that nobody would be able to make it in today we sent out a two line preemptive email to our employees:

Your choice today.
Work or play.

Normally when we get snow like this, our internet connection would go down because the satellite dish would be full of snow. About 4 weeks ago DSL became available for our area so we jumped on it.

We’ll keep checking in and post some photos throughout the day!

(UPDATE: Our dog Alexandra is loving the snow. We couldn’t resist posting a pic of her - I’m sure you can see why… and does the studio look like Santa’s workshop, or a gingerbread house? Click on the thumbnails for larger images.)