Happy Hanukkah!
Every year I mean to plug my webshop and its wares in time for the holidays, and every year I forget to do it until it’s too late. I figured I’d once again missed the boat but I just checked the buyolympia website (they manage my shop) and it looks like orders placed before December 17th and shipped priority mail will make it to US destinations by Christmas. Phew! So allow me to make some suggestions.
Illimat is a collaboration between famed game designer Keith Baker, The Decemberists, and me. I like playing cards and Colin likes complicated board games. These two activities might seem like they have a lot in common, but frankly they don’t, and it’s the source of some minor marital strife. We love Illimat because it’s the rare game that is a little bit of both. I’m told it’s kind of like the card game Casino, which I’ve not played, and don’t need to play because I have Illimat, keeping my marriage happy for the low price $34.95.
Giclee prints on nice paper! The first one is Alice Coltrane. A portion of the proceeds from the last one benefits Trans Lifeline.*
Susan Cooper’s beloved solstice poem, illustrated by yours truly. Will it make it to you by winter solstice if you order it right now? I honestly don’t know. Probably?
100% of the proceeds from this $5 card go to Planned Parenthood. Buy it to support affordable health care and reproductive freedom. Buy it to remind someone you love to keep moving heroically forward.
Together with Le Oui,** I also sell this design as a big screenprint. All proceeds from that go to the ACLU.
Maybe there is a Wildwood fan in your life? You’ll find a big color print of the Wildwood map in my shop too.
This is merely a sample. There’s more to see in my shop: cards, books, posters, a tote bag. You can find it all right here.
In Other News
I’ve spent the past month toiling away on two little paintings on paper. The first was the cover for One Week in January and the second was album art for a new Decemberists LP. Both compositions are complicated but the paintings are pretty small. I expected to spend a few days on each one but they took closer to forty hours a piece. How? you ask. Well, I’d be on the cusp of finishing one and I’d notice something that could be better. I’d improve the thing and the improvement would somehow upset the painting’s equilibrium, requiring me to rethink the whole piece. I painted over big swaths of both paintings again and again, tinkering and finessing, until I reached a point with each one where I felt totally crazy.
Now they’re done, and I’m happy with them. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this dark spiral of perfectionism that I sometimes slip into. What inflames it? Why does it feel so bad? Can I glean what’s useful from that impulse without surrendering to it completely?
Cowabunga
I’ll leave you with this photo of me pretending to skateboard. I showed it to Milo recently and he was like, “Oh cool. You were a skateboarder?” Bless his heart, he is too young to know what a poser looks like.
I was like, “No, but I used to sit on this plastic skateboard and go super fast down my steep driveway.” And he seemed to think that was cool too.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
Love,
Carson
* Trans Lifeline is the nation’s only hotline offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis. They are in dire need of funding right now.
** Le Oui is a side project of my gallerist May Barruel (at Nationale). She sells screenprints, created in close collaboration with artists. A portion of their proceeds benefit organizations fighting for social justice and equality.
First of all - cowabunga!!
Funny you should mention the perfectionism spiral, I’ve been doing that between two paintings today, going back and forth between the two adding extra details each time. I don’t work in a way that can be painted over, so it’s like walking a tightrope between unfinished and overworked! I guess I want to end up wobbling somewhere between the two! Happy holidays to you Carson - loved having a peep through your shop! X
the only thing on my christmas list is a “melt the guns” t-shirt but those seem to be long gone so i may just settle for the tote bag. maybe i can talk my husband into a wildwood mug as well!
i have to say that photo convinced me you were a cool skater girl too. maybe at heart, you are! it’s never too late to learn! (i must admit that i say this with a brand new pair of roller skates collecting dust in my closet.)
happy holidays, carson!