The fashion industry as a whole tends to be secretive. It’s hard to get tips and advice about the fashion business. No one likes sharing information about their business; who their manufacturer is, who their sample maker is, where they get their labels, tags, etc. etc. And I can understand it because you can’t trademark a clothing cut the way you can trademark a logo. The way a shirt or dress is cut can be copied by your competitor and really you can’t do much about it. Fabric patterns and graphics can be copywritten but everything else is free to take. So you tend to secretive about the other things that make your brand.

With my clothing line, the main difference about my graphic tees is that they are block printed and not screen printed. 99% of all graphic apparel is screen printed. My brand is based on the fact that I am an artist and a block printer. When you buy a piece of my apparel you buy a piece of me.

In all other parts of my life, I pretty much share as much as I can. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you the same thing. I love giving and sharing, but when it comes to my business, I clam up. I spent years developing my craft and developing the look of my line. People ask me all the time to teach them how to do what I do, and I refuse to. Why would I share something that is so unique to my line with someone who can copy it and become my competitor? Duh. You would be the same way. The fashion business is cut throat and we’re all just trying to stay alive. So whatever gives you your edge, you keep it to yourself.

I am part of a printmaking collective where artists come together to share ideas, work on projects, share resources. I love it. And I don’t mind sharing certain secrets with them because they are my friends and I trust them. I know they won’t turn around and copy my brand. When they ask me where I get my blanks, who makes my labels, who makes my hang tags, I tell them. But when a complete stranger emails me to get information. I hesitate. Do I share this information with someone I don’t know at all?  Am I a bad person if I don’t?

The thing is I research, research, research and experiment, experiment, experiment before I even think about approaching others. So I expect others to be the same way. You should  be able to figure out where to get your hang tags, labels, and whatnots for free and without me. It’s the magic of the internet. Whenever I need to get information, I always expect to have to pay for it. like I had to pay for my precious buyers list. I searched and searched for free lists, but I ended up having to buy a list from a fashion resource.

Something I learned from my family growing up is that nothing is free. Money was used as a way of social control. Act this way and you’ll be rewarded. Act that way and you’ll be cut off. That’s why I started working at the ripe age of 15 so I could be in control. For the next 7 years I worked in restaurants to be able to have money and live the way I wanted.

Everything is give and take. So are you giving enough or taking too much?

My mascot hard at work.

So I noticed that when I posted my last rant that I am so unhappy because of how people are behaving. This relates to the post save the drama for your momma. I am miserable because I am wishing for people to change their behavior. And clearly, I can’t control people.  Sigh…inner peace takes time.

I don’t know what it is with this month, but people around me have been so emotionally volatile. All this drama crap has been occurring in close proximity to me that its starting to really, really, really drive me bonkers. And no matter how I vainly try to subdue the fires, I still get burned. Because when people are emotional, they make rash decisions and take advantage of those around them. And my reaction to that is to stop being a volunteer, to stop being a friend, and to stop taking crap. The funny thing is that when this “mood” passes, the person goes back to normal and expects things to be the same.

Well, please. I only allow this crap with my husband. And he never pulls this sh&t because he’s emotionally stable and very mature. I thank my lucky stars for it.  I feel bad for him because for years I was emotionally unstable until I got on the right medications.

For the majority of my life, I was always extremely moody. I dealt with it by internalizing my feelings for a long time. It wasn’t until I started dating Adam that I was able to see how my moods affected the world and people around me. He became a mirror to my behavior. I would mistreat him when I was in a “bad mood” and I began to notice that my emotions and perceptions had no bearing on reality. I would feel so angry or sad for no reason, be petrified with accomplishing simple tasks, and hate myself when there was nothing in my environment causing me to feel this way. The torture was coming from within. Well, that’s just f%^&$ up! I knew that there was something wrong with me and I went to see a therapist who led me to seeing a psychiatrist who eventually diagnosed me with Bipolar II disorder. This was 8 years ago. And I have been seeing a psychiatrist once or twice a month since then.

For years I didn’t believe the diagnosis nor did I take my meds and the people around me, especially Adam, had to pay the price. Being in denial about my condition just hurt me and those I love. When you truly and honestly look at how you’re treating those around you, it can be eye-opening. I would never tolerate the way I behaved and knew I had to change. It would be wrong not to. It was a long battle but I realized that I needed meds to stabilize my moods and there is nothing wrong with that.

People who criticize the use of mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills can just sod off. They are just trivializing a very serious illness and by proxy are trivializing me. And no, I don’t believe that doctors should just prescribe drugs to whomever. It’s not a simple task to get your sh&t together. It takes work between you and your doctor.

And seriously those of you who are causing all this drama in my life, take your damn meds. I know you have them there so take them and stop causing me grief.

PLEASE TAKE YOUR DAMN MEDS!

The shirts say everything I feel about the Drug War. Don’t forget about my pillspotting tshirt!

I was just shown this video of the Tour de Queens which was a bike ride through our wonderful borough. And I snapped a shot of my I HEART QUEENS sticker on someone’s helmet. Awesome!

I love my new studio space especially because I am working right next door to some great artists. There is a lot of collaboration and interaction between most of the other tenants. It’s really great. It’s especially been fun to observe others and see how they deal with daily situations. If you haven’t, I really suggest just spending one day really watching others. The more I watch others, the more I learn about myself. It’s makes me realize that I am pretty in touch with who I am and what my needs are.

From reading my blog it might seems like I have alot of internal strife because I talk about my anxieties of owning a business and working as an artist. And believe me there are days where I am full of unease. But overall I am really happy with who I am and with what I’m doing. And it doesn’t matter what the future holds because it’s the “now” that counts. It’s Buddhist philosophy to live in the now. It’s also the Dog Whisperer’s philosophy and we know how brilliant Ceasar is. You can’t change the past nor live in the future. We live in the now.

Also what Buddhism has taught me to accept the fact that you cannot control others. You can try, but you’ll only be dissapointed in the end. You can to a certain point control your environment, but you’ll never find inner happiness with trying to control eternal factors. You can truly only find peace and happiness within yourself.

The building I’m in is currently going through a lot of changes and there are a lot of growing pains. It is a commercial space but there are people who live there and they are unhappy with the new changes taking place. More businesses are moving in and the rules of the building are changing to be more professional. So people who live there must be more discreet and can’t walk about in pajamas or towels. And there a mini revolt taking place because they don’t like the new rules. There is a lot of pushing and pulling that’s going on that is creating so much drama. Many artists already have internal drama and when they’re pushed the drama is externalized to an extreme.

I just think all this drama is completely unnecessary. Since I am pretty laid back and really don’t care what people do, I’m not really upset. Its in my nature to avoid drama and avoid those who make it. It makes me realize that some people need drama and need to create it. And they don’t realize that they are the ones creating their own unhappiness.

Life is fluid and governed by cause and effect. Things will always change and learning to accept that will create less internal drama.

On another note:
Sigh…I just found out I bounced a large check. Crapola. Looks like times are going to get rough.

So business has been steadily growing. I hired a studio assistant and moved the operations out from my home studio to art studio in a commercial space. Very exciting! And I had leftover paint from when we painted our apartment and painted my studio to create a very homey feeling. Here are the pics.

Check out these new tees my friend Sarah at Post Expose made. They are fabulous! They are available for purchase $25 each.

FYI - I hate this picture of me but I’m trying to not be so vain so I put it up anyway. I think my body looks totally distorted. Urgh. The sacrifices I make to create political change….

Here it is. On my arm, not on my finger. The design we wanted wouldn’t fit correctly on our ring fingers. So Adam and I got the same on on our arms. Matching tattoos! So cute, I almost want to puke, almost.

I joke, but truly I love it. We love it.