Scraps to Stamps

Over the last six year of JackBear Stamps, I have carved hundreds of stamps.  I haven't counted lately, but I'm confident it's over 500, maybe higher.  In the course of carving an image, I generate a fair amount of scrap (that's "crap" with an "s").  As you can see from my old pistachio containers pictured, it comes in all shapes and sizes.

My parents grew up in the Depression, so they weren't the kind of folks to throw stuff away unless it was beyond repair or worth.  So I keep the bits of corners that get cut off when making a larger image, or the long line that is leftover from trimming something square.  I do throw out tiny bits and shavings that can't be used again, I'm not a total hoarder!

But over the years I have generated quite the stockpile. The thought in my head was I would use this material to carve tiny stamps.  The size of which could probably be mounted to a penny or a quarter. So into the extra jars this material went.  I certainly have enough, and I am more confident in my abilities to carve smaller details.

Some of my letterboxing or stamp carving friends immediately notice the difference in colors of the material above.  The pink stuff is the tried and true, "smooth as butter", material from Speedy Carve from Speedball.  They also will notice the white material.  This is hard to tell apart, but I'm sure the containers are full of PZ, MZ, NZ, OZ, and Firm Kut (as I have carved a little bit of all these) from Stampeaz.com.  Of course the one that would bring the most attention is the now defunct Orange PZ Kut from Stampeaz.com.  Carvers think back to the days they carved on this material like they think back on their favorite Christmas present from their youth.  I still have a few scraps of it left.  I usually just stare at it wistfully.

With one of my biggest shows of the year on the horizon, Mayday Underground, I decided it was time to put the scrap to good use.  So I have been busy carving some sets of stamps to use it up, though honestly I haven't even scratched the surface yet (no pun intended).

Some of the scrap I used to make fault washi tape stamps.  Washi tape is decorative tape used in crafting to decorating just about anything you can tape, from clothespins to clipboards.  So I used a bit of the scrap to make sets of three designs that can be stamped side by side to create a washi tape effect.

I found this font online of all kinds of sci-fi ray guns.  Being a Sci-Fi fan, I was immediately drawn to them, and figured I could downsize them onto my scrap bits of carving material to create a set.  They are small enough that I think you could use them with other stamps of people or aliens and get it to fit snugly in their hands.  The one pictured in black reminds me of Han Solo's blaster.  The purple and green ones pictured remind me more of the Flash Gordon or art deco style sci-fi ray guns.

I have to say I am a skeptic.  I believe in proof, not intuition. However, there is a small part of me that wants to believe.  I hope aliens are out there.  I can't totally rule out that Illuminati are secretly controlling the world.  Is Bigfoot really wandering around the forests of our continent?  I don't think any of these things are true, but the lack of evidence does not immediately disprove it's existence.  So I totally get sucked into shows on the History channel that speculate on the treasure of Oak Island, or the hidden troves of Templar artifacts.  I guess my older brother and sisters watched a bit too much of "In Search Of..." with Leonard Nemoy and I got sucked in.

Pennants and chevrons are all the rage.  You see them all over craft shows, and all over Pinterest. So some of my scrap is going toward some pennants with patterns.  The cool thing with these is that you can use just one from the set of three, or you can use two, or all three, to create a line of banners. You can ink them up in any color you have, or even multiple colors of the rainbow.  They are VERY versatile.  I have fun printing with them, and then taking my pen and drawing a line to connect them. This could not be easier.

If you are interested in one of these sets drop by Mayday Underground this Saturday or Sunday at the Village Gate in Rochester, NY.  Or if you aren't local, drop me a message on my etsy.com shop and I'll carve you up a custom order.

Art in a Cart

Imagine an artisan of old pushing around a cart from village to village full of his handmade wares. He peddles the treasures to welcoming faces who have never seen the likes inside the borders of that their town. Screeeeeeeech!  Wait, that isn't how this is supposed to start.

The story begins with an opportunity.  At the University of Rochester the student commons is called  Wilson Commons. Within the depths of the bottom floor lies a candy counter that sells candy by the bulk, as well as house made fudge, called the Common Market.  It is run by the Student Activities Office, which in full disclosure, is where my wife works (the office, not the counter).

The Student Activities Office had an idea to sell some items by outside vendors in a cart to be built next to the Common Market.  The cart was built to look like... well, like a cart.  It has wheels (though flat now), doors, and even lights.  First it was originally designed to sell plants, then imported hats, scarves, and mittens.  Those early vendors blazed the trail, ran the risks, but couldn't sustain.

Enter the idea.  What if the cart could sell handmade goods by local artists and craftspeople ?  I'm not sure who's idea it was, perhaps it was the Student Activities Office fearless leader Anne-Marie Algier.  Maybe it was the ever professional Laura Ballou (yes, that's my wife).  Or was it the cart's current supervisor, Michael Dedes.  Let's give them all credit.

Who could provide such handmade goods?  Who could work on such a small scale?  Who could bring enlightenment to the darkness?  Sorry.... getting carried away.

Along comes a man who knows a few people who could be of service.  Let's call him Jack.  Jack is a member of a group of local heroes artists who call themselves the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST). The group is very diverse: jewelers, knitters, painters, illustrators, designers, photographers... you name it.  Though diverse, they all share three things in common: 1) they are local 2) they make things by hand 3) they have shops on etsy.com. Jack say's that he could get an artisan to set up in the cart for a month at a time.  They could call it the RNEST Art Cart.

New plexiglass doors were installed, new signs were made, contracts got written and rewritten. The RNEST Art Cart opened in the Fall of 2013. The first year was the trial.  Could this work?  Would there be enough interest?  Jack and Michael tried to pick artisans who might succeed.  Taking into consideration the time of year, students' interests, artisans with adequate inventory.  JackBear Stamps was first, since it would be important to work out some of the early kinks.  Next came Circuit Breaker Labs, Papersaurus Creative, Pure Bodycare Essentials, and DuncanClay.

The first year's trial taught Jack and Michael many lessons.  The successes outweighed the failures, so a second year was planned.  Leading the pack with her incredible letterpress-ed masterpieces was Chris Charles of Fly Rabbit Press.  Jack had hoped for a knitter to provide some warm hats and scarves in October, but he couldn't get one in time.

So coming full circle, back for the month of October 2014, JackBear Stamps will be in the RNEST Art Cart again until October 30th.  To finish off the semester, and throughout the holiday season, the Art Cart will feature Sunshyne Silverware's amazing repurposed jewelry and accessories.

How does the story end?  Will the RNEST Art Cart continue to flourish?  Can they keep local
handmade goods available to the University of Rochester community?  Will the mass produced forces of darkness take over? (Sorry, slipped off the edge there again)

The end is, "To be continued."

Origin Story

original photo

First I will confess I am tired of origin stories.  As a comic book reader in my youth I read so many stories about how superheroes came into being.  And very often the comic book writers rewrote those stories with new details, so I got those stories over and over.  Now that all the Marvel and DC movies are coming out to the big screen, I am seeing all these stories again.  I get it though, producers need to introduce the characters to new audiences.  Origin stories answer questions like "Why" and "How" the characters got to where they are now.  Who will ever forget: Adam and Eve, A babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, the Earth on Turtle's Back, or Krypton exploding.  They are both memorable and powerful.

I have probably written enough about how I became involved in a hobby called letterboxing, my need to carve my first stamp, and my letterboxing handle "jackbear."

But an origin story that I haven't told in much detail is the one of how I turned an avocation into a vocation.  It answers the questions, "How did I create JackBear Stamps?"

It began with an email and a photograph in May of 2008.  I received a message on Atlas Quest, my favorite letterboxing website.  A letterboxer, going by the handle of JBBK, contacted me to carve a portrait stamp.  She was not confident in her own skills yet to carve faces, and she had a photo of her friend's boys (or maybe it was a relative?) that she wanted carved into a stamp to give to him as a gift. She wanted to know how much I charged.  I told her that I wasn't really carving for cash, but since I didn't know her at all up until this point, she could just order me some PZ Kut from Stampeaz.com, my carving medium of choice from my online supplier.  She was very pleased with that arrangement, and I had an opportunity to test my skills without too much pressure.

I ran the photo through some filters in photoshop, and managed to teach myself how to transform a full color photo into something black and white, and then into a line drawing that I could carve.  We worked out a size and I got started carving.

finished custom rubber stamp image

I don't remember how long it took me, but after I proofed it for the first time, I felt like I was onto something.  The biggest challenge for me, and many newer carvers, are "eyes."  If you don't get them right, the person looks strange.  If I had to carve the stamp again today, I would make a change or two, but for my first commissioned stamp for compensation I was pleased with the result.

The feedback I got was overwhelmingly positive. JBBK and the recipient of the stamp loved it, and I got some extra PZ Kut in the arrangement.  But more importantly, it sparked an idea in my head. Up until this point the people I knew through letterboxing all carved their own stamps.  No need for my services.  But after this transaction I realized there might be people who weren't confident yet in their carving skills, or they might have friends who were NOT in letterboxing that needed a stamp.  That had never occurred to me before.

Around the same time I had learned about Etsy.com.  Now there was a marketplace with low overhead that I could market my work through.  I rapidly researched how to set myself up as a business and get a sales tax number.  By that Fall I opened my etsy shop, and started selling stamps.

The rest is history as they say.  Every time I look at this stamp I think about how this was the one that started me on this journey of JackBear Stamps, and I will always remember it as part of my origin story.

Jackbear Get's Interviewed!

I found this great new podcast a few weeks ago when looking for something new to listen to.  It's called the Etsy Conversations Podcast.  I have been looking for a long time for a podcast like this one, and was excited when it popped up on my search a few weeks ago.  After catching up on the three episodes that were already posted, I emailed the host, Angela Holden, to see if she wanted me to be a guest.  Actually, I pitched myself as a "dude" since we are a bit harder to come by on etsy.

She was excited, and I was excited, so we "skyped" last week and laid down the tracks.  It was really fun!  I was excited to share my story.  I wish I had mentioned all the things I had thought of saying (like how awesome the teams are I am involved in), but maybe I'll remember it all next time.

Anyway, the episode gets posted on Sunday (May 13).  You can listen to it at the Etsy Conversations Podcast site, or you can subscribe to it in iTunes (or whatever other podcatchers you use (I like Downcast app on my iPod)).

OR, and this is what I REALLY want to mention, is you can join other like minded listeners on Sunday, May 13th, at 9 pm EST and listen to the episode and chat along.  Yes, we are having a little "listening party".  I have set up a Ustream feed that you can click on, and we will listen to the podcast together, and we can chat along in the chat box.  I hope you can drop by and listen.
Free desktop streaming application by Ustream

Halloween Treasuries Galore !

Wow, I have been featured in a ton of creepy cool treasuries on Etsy in the past week.  I guess the Halloween spirit is now in the air!  Here is a sampling:

Halloween Treasury

 Nevermore Nevermore

Keep Calm and Zombie On

Fire Walk With Me

It's ALIVE!

How fitting. No, not because it is the Halloween season, but because Dr. Frankenstein's monster was his creation...his first attempt at life. And this is my first attempt as selling an ACEO!

So let me back up. An ACEO is an Artist Card: Original or Edition. Perhaps you have heard of an ATC (Artist Trading Card) or a LTC (Letterbox Trading Card). These are miniature works of art that are 2.5 inches wide, by 3.5 inches high, the dimensions of a poker card, or a baseball card.

Artist love to make these little gems, and I got into making them through my letterboxing addiction. We call them LTC's there, and the point is to use a hand carved stamp to create the card.

So, my Frankenstein card is technically also an LTC, in the fact that I made it from two hand carved stamps, but I'm going to sell these, so they aren't really "trading" cards anymore. So many definitions!

I created this for a couple reasons though. I am part of a team on etsy called the Mad Scientists of Etsy. They have monthly challenges, and for October was to make something about an upcoming holiday, and put a science twist on it. I can't think of a better mad scientist than good old Doc Frankenstein, so I carved a stamp of our favorite creepy monster. I liked the stamp too much to part with it, so I decided to sell a limited edition of it's print, in the form of ACEOs.

The great part about these, besides being small and collectible, is that they are cheap for Art! I called this one "Mad Science: Frank" because I might do other ACEOs based on the Mad Science theme, so keep checking back.

Keep you eyes out on my etsy shop for more, I have another already done and ready to post called "Danse Macabre"!