Lovelihood

You wouldn't know it to look at this website, but I have a serious aversion to hearts. Hearts on jewelry? Definitely not my bag. Hearts on clothes? I'll take the plain black tee, please.  Candies in heart-shaped boxes? Well, maybe if it's chocolate. Heart shaped key fobs and purses and barrettes and fabric of any sort and tins and wall stickies… Yeah, you can just take that back to Claire's where you found it and leave me alone in my eggshell-minimal, Lucite-furnished room. Actually, I have no aspirations to minimalism, but given the choice between that route and the one where I'd have to accessorize with pink-on-pink appliqued heart-y pillows, the choice is starkly clear.

Which is all quite unfortunate, because the heart is actually a pretty pleasing shape, graphically speaking. Nice curves and points, symmetrical if you want it to be, but pliable and versatile, lending itself well to patterns and repeats. It's just that the tween set, and those marketing to them, have dominated the image for so long that it's impossible, now, to envision a world where a heart could be any color other than pink or red or red-pink.

And, of course, with a name like mine, run-ins with this image are inevitable and call for a certain amount of acceptance. Embrace, even. Because when you have a name that can easily be symbolized, that can be a pretty powerful thing. I mean, just think of all the slogan possibilities. Like all those people named Getz who can advertise that they "Getz resultz." (Yeah, I know that was improper grammar, but the letter z also can't be used to indicate plurality, so I'm going to take some leeway on this point). I can't think of any good slogans off-hand involving "love" or hearts, but if I was privy to the glamorous world of advertising copywriters, I'd be sure to make a killing. 

I say, with or without Madison Avenue, it's time we reclaimed the heart from those who would wear pink nail polish. High school cheerleaders across the nation will just have to find something else to dot their "i"s. So I unveil to you, today, Love Letters, fresh off the Gocco. The majority of my screen printing time seems to happen in the evening hours, after the kids have been ensconced in quilts and blankets and worms that glow. It's the largest chunk of time I have to do my own thing without a wee one nuzzling up against my leg ready to play. You can view moodily-lit pictures of my Gocco process here, if you're interested. Everything about the Gocco is lovely, except the fact that it's no longer produced, and supplies are, therefore, pricey and hard to come by. I stockpiled screens and screen-burning bulbs last year, and now I'm trying to ride it out, biding my time before someone takes up the good Gocco cause and re-establishes production. Because it will happen, right?

Cereal boxes had, again, begun to stack up in the corner, so another card was in order. And with letterpress on the brain and a hankering to get back into some sort of graphic designery, I dreamt up this one, in turquoise and orange, for the shop. Feeling a little stingy with the supplies, I almost did this one up in just one color, because the registration on the letters is a little too tight to press two colors side by side. But I'm glad I went with the second screen. It gives the card a nice little burst of orange. Because everything is better with orange. So there you have it. A new kind of heart. Cool blue and typographic with nary a hint of Comic Sans.