Perfect Fall Days in Blissed Out Olympia

Farm Bounty!

One Happy Jack o'Lantern

And on my favorite walk I found

Inlets & stretches of green
Map lines on paper
Tangled heart
Tangled roads
Pacific roots curl outward
Passages and Narrows
Inlets & stretches of green.

Olympia Weekend

I traveled to Olympia this weekend - as I often do - to see Andy & catch up with my friend & past roommate Jenna. Friday night with Jenna turned into silliness at Le Voyeur where I found and snapped this little spot of graffiti. It's one of my favorite yet. Snuggle - what a nice winter sentiment!

That evening it was brought to my attention that Jenna had airbrushed her van in camouflage. Now mind you, Jenna has had a thing for camouflage for some time - so for her, it's fitting. But still, when she told me that her funky maroon van was now decked out in camo I never would have expected this -

By simply airbrushing over leaves & pine with her artist's eye she created the most gorgeous glowing camo I've ever seen. Now half of Olympia is begging her to do theirs too. I don't blame them one bit.

A Little History

Here is a little Rekoj background which was first prompted by a really great forum thread on the EtsyRain message boards - "What were you thinking?" As in how did you end up on Etsy selling stuff?

I want to post my reply here just cuz it was so fun to think about:

I've drawn my whole life - had parents that happily encouraged my creativity. As a kid I would fully draw out characters, costumes, living spaces etc and make little books about them. Then, as I got older those little drawings turned into paintings which then turned into studying animation. I loved to animate but somehow I got it into my head that in order to actually get an animation job I would be forced to move to LA - which I really didn't want to do! (Little older and wiser about that nowadays)
The line drawings that I paint on everything I do began with that study of animation however. They are my way of capturing movement in a single plane. I had been doodling them for ages on paper, but it took a visit to this interesting little retail experiment that one of my friends was involved in before I made the leap from paper onto fabric. 6 years ago I started freehand painting my line drawings on recycled clothing and I became a seller with the Olympia Clothing Project, which was basically a fashion designer's shared retail space. We all sold our items commission free in exchange for working the store a day or two each month. It was hugely successful and fabulous fun - until a major roof leak in the building we were in forced us out of our cheap rent. Without a place to sell, many of us dispersed out into either traditional brick and mortar shops or BuyOlympia.com. We would occasionally bump into each other at craft shows such as I Heart Rummage or Crafty Wonderland, but overall it seemed like it was the end of us designers taking charge.

And then along came Etsy - and now I've reconnected with some of the other original Oly Clothing Project designers through Etsy such as Ruffeo Hearts Lil' Snotty and PaperDollFashion. And that artist and crafter community I was so sad to have lost? It wasn't an end oh no - it was a beginning of what is now a worldwide community. We all know it - Etsy ROCKS!

Get on the Sunny Day Bus

Upon arriving in Olympia we spotted this lovely parked across the street from Andy's house.

I of course was big fan of the bra wearing cow skull. Andy almost had to stop from stealing it in front of his neighbors! I elected to take a picture instead.

The weekend was lovely - it's pretty hard to beat Olympia on a sunny day. After a fine dinner at the Mark on Saturday night (including delicious ginger cocktails which was the main reason Betsy wanted to go!) we awoke nearly well rested the following morning determined to eat breakfast at Quality Burritto. Which meant that we needed to kill a bit of time as they don't keep the earliest of hours. So we all took a walk to the Olympia farmers market which was full of color, life and sunshine.

Today, I've got an "I miss Olympia" hangover. Wandered through the Pike Place Market today on my lunch break to pick up a few groceries and grab some lunch and it just wasn't quite the same. Oly has a pretty special unique charm to it that just can't be replaced.

Oh sigh.