Hard work (and a little play)

The valentine's day orders are rolling in left and right, which is fantastic considering last year I literally did not sell a single piece that I knew was going to be a V-Day gift.

Right now the two biggies are my custom silhouettes and hand-cut valentine

Anyway, the real point of this post isn't to get you guys to buy stuff, but to encourage you all. Last January was the start of what I call "the rough months". My sales plummeted, almost nobody was interested in my work, and the entire country was in near-panic over the economic situation.

The incredible amount of "down time" allowed me to focus on my art, get some pieces cut, and come up with new ideas for my etsy shop. It got so bad that in February of last year I had $300 in total sales. That isn't profit, that's TOTAL sales. It was rough, and when you are working 40+ hour work weeks and seeing nothing for it, it hurts. Wasn't much better in January or March. Fortunately we were expecting a dip after Christmas and cut our spending WAY back and just managed to squeek by through March.

If you are also self employed and facing a minor crisis and possibly considering quitting, look at your goods. Look at your website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc. What can you do better? Think of it as a bit of a vacation and do something crazy as an experiment. Can't get much worse right?

I did some CRAZY pieces last winter, and I don't have them any more, because come summer and fall, I had a better blog, a better site, increased my items in my etsy shop (more items, the better I have found) and had a TON of new pieces that were ready to go any time a show came up and sold a bunch of pieces.

If you need help, tips or encouragement, especially these slow times, I'm a pretty good cheerleader. Drop me a note!
~Joe

Terminal 22 Papercuts Show

Just sharing the announcement for the Terminal 22 Papercuts Show including seven of my pieces:
If any of you happen to be over in the San Francisco area, please attend the show and let me know how it goes. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it!

Experimentation!

I've been itching to make things, but lately it's been of the 3D variety.

For starters, I made a paper collar my wife was kind enough to model for:

Link to Etsy Listing: Radiant- Avant Garde Paper Neck Piece

I have another collar that's all done, just need to photograph it and list it.

I also had an idea last night about combining papercutting with origami. Wasn't sure if it would work, and it, guess what, it did!

This one's 14x14x8



Etsy Listign: Origami papercut crane with branches

This inspired me to make this smaller one (7x7x4), which I cut out all the "panels" between the folds making a paper crane skeleton:


Etsy listing: Origami paper crane skeleton

Let me know what you think!

Tools of the trade- Knives

I get a bunch of emails each month asking how I make my papercuts and the materials I use.

I thought it might be a good idea to make some posts about my techniques so others can give it a try themselves. Plenty of room in the world for more papercutters!

I'll be focusing on knives. I use exclusively Xacto products just because they are, in my opinion, the best available. Trust me, I've tried them all.

A quick note on terminology: Knife is the handle, blade is the sharp part that the knife holds.

Here are my two main knives (I have pretty much every product Xacto makes, but these are my most used ones)

Xacto X3627 Gripster Soft Grip Knife- available everywhere


and my piece de resistance: Xacto 3051 Professional Swivel Knife. (shown with some blue painters tape to thicken it a bit and make it more comfortable for my hands)



Xacto no longer makes the 3051, and I only have one that was given to me by a friend who did rubylith cutting for billboards in the 70s (that's how old the knife is). If you find one, I'll buy it off you! Actually, my birthday is coming up on Feb 3rd...

The Gripster takes standard #11 blades. I use this knife for all my straight cuts as it is very easy to cut a perfectly straight cut with a standard xacto knife/blade.

The Pro swivel knife, however, is pretty much the greatest thing ever and I'd love for Xacto to start producing the knife again (are you listening Xacto???)

This swivel knife, unlike the swivel knife Xacto makes today, is entirely made from metal. There are tiny ball bearings that allow the blade to rotate in the knife without having any wiggle to the blade. The currently available swivel knife allows way to much movement of the blade inside the knife, so trying to put the tip of the knife exactly in the right spot is difficult because the blade wiggles a bit as you press it into the paper (bad).

While they say you cant use the current swivel knives available at stores (they come in a tiny plastic tube and each blade is encased in a white piece of plastic), I found that you can still use the blades for the old style knife, you just need to take the blade out of the plastic case. This is very easy.

I really wish Xacto did not package these blades with the point down as they are very sharp yet delicate. When they get jostled around on the shelf or in shipping, the tips can sometimes break off in the package. At $1 each, I don't want to waste ANY blades in the package and I'll check every one before I buy them.

I use a pair of pliers and squeeze the plastic case just below the blade. This crushes the plastic and loosens the blade, then I take the pliers, pull the blade out, and put the blade directly into the pro swivel knife, which holds the blade in a brass mechanism. A bit of work, but totally worth it for the stability of the pro knife.


The best thing about the pro knife is that the blade swivels inside the knife so incredibly smoothly, you can cut your work just like you would drawing with a pen. Here's a video of my using my swivel knife to cut a piece. It doesn't cut straight lines very well though, that's why I use the traditional knife with #11 blades.





I hope this was helpful to all of you. Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments, I read them all, and I'll try to answer them all.

I'll be doing another post on paper, adhesive, and design.

Papercuts By Joe the movie!

Just uploaded this video to youtube showing some of my work, and some in-progress photos showing them being made.

Happy New Year

So I'm starting this year off by actually following one of my resolutions: Blog more.

With that, here's my biggest announcement of the new year: A new gallery show!

Just before New Year's Eve, Jessie Wusthoff, of Terminal 22 Gallery in Oakland, CA (Just east of San Francisco) wrote me saying she her gallery has a show coming up in February featuring paper artists and she has openings.

I was quite surprised to hear she wanted several pieces, and more than happy to accommodate!

I will be sending SEVEN pieces, including two large pieces made especially for the show.

Unfortunately, because it's such short notice, I will not be able to attend the opening personally, but my spies in CA (fellow full-time Etsy artists) have agreed to attend and take some photos for me.

I'm extremely excited about the show! Rarely do I get the chance to have people know what my medium is before the look at the piece, so unless I get to talk to them personally, many think they are prints, woodcuts, pen&ink, etc.

This will be my first West Coast show, which is exciting for being what it is, and also I can now say I've shown in galleries across the country:)

I've read some great reviews of the gallery and I trust them to show my work well.

Show info:

The Paper Show
Terminal 22
2443 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94612

Opening Gala: Feb 5, 6-9 pm

My birthday is the 3rd, so I'm considering this a great present!

I hope any of you Bay-area people can make the show and let me know how it goes (and buy a piece!)

Wicked busy but...

Just wanted to share a silhouette I just finished with you all. More updates after the new year. I currently have 15 custom pieces I'm working on and expecting (and hoping) the onslaught will continue all the way to Christmas. I'll be back soon with much more regular updates:)

Exciting Development: Acquire Boutique gallery show 2010

Hi all,

First, the lull in interest in papercutting last week is now over, thankfully, and the panicky-aspects of my personality can calm down as custom pieces head out to South Carolina, Illinois, Scotland, and Queens.

So, over the past few weeks I've been poorly keeping a secret about a new gallery opportunity.

Meet Nikki Dalrymple:


Nikki was a producer for PBS and the National Geographic Channel, but decided to follow her passions and started a Brick&Mortar store and design business in the North End of Boston named Acquire Boutique.

The North End is legendary for a couple reasons: Food, food, food, pastries, history, food again, and oh yeah, food. It is also one of the oldest and best preserved neighborhoods in Boston (Paul Revere's house is still there).

It is also the best up-and-coming retail district of the city and boutiques and beautiful shops are springing up. Beyond a doubt, Acquire, with its quirky mix of vintage and modern decor, is the best! I can prove this better with photos than words, so here's some design "porn":





But don't take my word and beautiful photos (thanks Nikki for letting me "borrow" them), Nikki and her shop have been featured in the following: Lucky, Boston Home magazine 2009, Stuff magazine, New England Home, Daily Candy, the Globe, Home Furnishing Now, Travel and Leisure, The Improper Bostonian, Boston Common, and recently won a Best of Boston award. That's some crazy good press!

Anyway, Nikki posted on her blog back in July 29th looking for interesting silhouette artists/papercutters. Well, during the Boston Arts festival, Nikki just happened to walk into my booth, and after talking briefly handed me a card and mentioned showing my work at her store.

Jen and I visited a couple days later and were BLOWN AWAY by the store, everything in it is beautiful, stylish, and best of all, reasonably priced! Seriously if you are anywhere near Boston, check out her store, buy everything, and afterwards, get a cannoli down the road.

So, it's now official, I will be showing a series of nautical-themed pieces at Acquire from, get this, May 15- August 15. That's the ENTIRE summer tourist season, and the neighborhood is very good for buying local and supporting local stores, so it's the best of both worlds! I'm extremely excited, there will be an opening party, and I be sure to post many times as things develop.

Slow week!

Hi everyone,

I've been hearing the buzz around Etsy that everyone's sales are starting to pick up. Wish that was the same here! Last month was great, and I ended up sending out TWELVE pieces this Monday and Tuesday! But...only one new customer in a week. Strange how that happens!

Regardless, it's given me tons of time to get little projects done like start applying to grad school, apply for a second job (winter is rough for papercutting if I follow last years trends)

I got my new computer yesterday! I've called it the Beast. Dont get me wrong, the processor is pretty ho-hum but still a huge upgrade from what I had. Apparently if you run a busy business 99% online/on the computer and your six-year-old laptop freezes everytime you open photoshop and gmail at the same time, it's time for an upgrade. The Monitor is the only thing I really splurged on as it makes doing several things at a time very helpful. I split the screen in half and do one thing on the left side, and another on the right. It's like having an employee!

Other than that I've done some geneology stuff, cleaned up my etsy shop a bit, and started Twittering!
Oh, and check out my etsy page, I've uploaded seven new items!

Makers Mark

Hi everyone,

For some time now, I have been trying to come up with some unique makers mark or cartouche to put on my work. I find that my signature can be a bit large, especially on silhouettes and other smaller pieces. I also feel like my work falls more philosophically in the fine-craft than the fine art category and I really like the decorative marks on fine furniture and ceramics.

I have studied craftsmen art and furniture for a few years now. I recently had the opportunity to visitn the JMW Gallery in Boston. I've seen the MFA and METs collection of Arts and crafts furniture and decorative arts, and JMW easily has a larger collection- and its all for sale. If you can afford it (I can't).

I've discussed it before (about a year ago on this blog), but I really love the aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts (Craftsman) movement, and I am also am blown away be the entire philosophy that surrounds the movement. Essentially, the A&C period focused on a guild-like work structure where masters taught apprentices. The earliest craftsman pieces were extremely medieval in appearance.

Overtime, the movement developed it's own sense of style and focused on the use of simple materials (wood, metal, glass, leather, paper, ceramics) and craftsman skill. The kicker was that their work was so incredibly, unbelievably difficult to make, and they deliberately made things harder than they need to be simply to show that the work of a fine craftsman was something to be seen, appreciated, and celebrated. You can see this in Craftsman architecture where beams and support structure are exposed and over-complicated, yet still maintaining a clean look. You can also see this in furniture were joints and pegging is both exposed and emphasized to show the skills of its creator.

At this time (1880-1930) the Industrial Revolution was really moving into high gear producing goods cheaply and quickly. The Craftsman movement was a deliberate reaction to this loss of appreciation for hand-made goods, and presents this idea with an emphasis on exposed skill.

The furniture and decorative arts of this period have clean lines, simple decorations, earth tones, and most importantly, done as difficultly as humanly possible.

I've struggled for some time with where exactly my work falls- is it fine art, fine craft, or folk art? I think it's not really any of them and all of them at the same time. How's that for a cop-out? Seriously though, I find that my work next to paintings will never be appreciated by the general public as an equally-respected medium/style. Also, next to a beautiful raku urn or Roycroft desk my work may seem like simple wall-art. Plus, I have deliberately avoided the traditional folk art styles of historic papercutters.

So, what to do? I'm treating my work as a Fine Craft you hang on your wall like a painting. All great Craftsman artist have makers marks, and I've been wanting to create one that I can use to easily identify my work. I love antiques roadshow, and makers marks are seriously one of the best parts of the show. "Well, this would normally be a simple well-made oak desk, but this "R" in an urn makers mark indicates it was made by the Roycroft Craftsmen and is worth $30,000".

I really wanted to show the craftsman influences and ideas behind my work and was leaning for a while for a picto-gram, but couldn't come up with a plant or animal that significantly meant something important to me. My name wasn't especially symmetrical, however after playing with it for a while and using traditional Craftsman fonts, I came up with my very first makers mark. Drum roll please:

I'm going to keep it approximately 1/2 inch in size on the piece. I usually sign next to the piece, and I really shouldn't do that in case in the future it has to be re-mounted, the signature will be separate from the papercutting. No good. As soon as I get a white archival pen I will start marking my pieces with this mark, and signing the back of the papercut with my full signature. It won't be visible unless unmounted, but I think people always like to know their art holds secrets.

Wow, that was incredibly long and rambling. I need more coffee!