There are aspects of history you must know in order to recreate.

Music Making Workshop

So, we’ve been planning and hosting weekly workshops since 2008 with a goal of growing and connecting the creative community in the Lakeshore area. Over the past two years we’ve visited designers, sculptors, painters, photographers, illustrators, makers and printers…mostly visual / tactile stuff. I’m super excited to announce that this month we’re expanding into (drumroll please) …music!

“I guess I feel like the power of something comes from the feelings it conjures, emotionally first and intellectually second. I’ve never been to an art show and felt like the art had a hold over every person in the room, much less looked over my shoulder to see 50,000 lighters held up in a show of solidarity for Ozzy’s cause. Have you ever seen someone come out of an art show pouring with sweat, a glazed look in their eyes, throwing their fist in the air like they just had a religious experience? Art shows don’t seem to elicit that level of enthusiasm.” - Shepard Fairey

Saturday, January 30 we’re organizing a candid discussion on music making with the Bangups, Valentiger and a host of other musicians and audiophiles. This workshop runs from 2:00-5:00pm at the Holland Area Arts Council.

The format is simple: honest discussions on songwriting, recording and promotions with time for one-on-one and Q&A. Cost is $10 and includes cover to the following 8:00 concert at Lemonjello’s. Feel free to bring samples of your work or smaller instruments (no drum kits) for the break out sessions.

If you have questions or comments please direct them to the event page on Facebook.

Studio Tour: Teamwork Bags

Get psyched! We’re starting 2010 off right by visiting Nick Stockton and the crew at Teamwork Bags this Thursday. In case you aren’t familiar; they upcycle discarded sails and tire tubes into super durable messenger bags that have earned the attention of Treehugger, A Green Zone and a plethora of others. A little closer to home; one of our own (Aubrey) was lucky enough to win one of their bags through Hey Josh’s Pimp My Bag Contest last year.

Meet at the Holland Area Arts Council at 3:30 and we’ll carpool to their Grand Rapids studio. Bring an additional $5 for a snack on the road. We’ll return to the Arts Council at 6:30.

If this is your first time attending a workshop you’ll need to fill out this form and bring it. Reserve your spot on the FunBus via Facebook.

Justice Team Tee

A month ago my good friend Monica came to me with an idea. She heads up the Justice Team as a part of the Campus Ministries at Central College and they were looking for a way to spread the word about their team and also do a little good. The idea: we design a kickin’ tee and they  sell them on campus to raise money for an organization doing good. Since we’re fans of all those things (Central, faith, justice and t-shirts) we went all in and came up with the design above. It sold well on campus (160 tees!) so we thought we’d make it available in the new year. As always, they are hand printed on the extra soft + super sexy American Apparel Tri-Blend Track Tee and will soon be available in the shop. Below you’ll see the finished product and a little something on the symbolism behind the design.

Artist Series Journals

We’ve wrapped up production of a small run of handmade journals (80 total). They’re small in size but not in content as a plethora of goodness in contained there in: blank pages, stickers, quotes, art with a dash of political commentary. This is the first of many Artist Series journals and I’m excited about what’s coming down the chute. We’re going to include them in as many orders as we can until they run out. If you want a stand alone just drop me an e-mail and we’ll work something out…like $5…or a trip to Subs’N More.

NPC Youth Hoody

We designed and printed these all-ovah! hoodies for Joel and the NPC Youth posse. Chances are it’s just as cold in Peoria as it is in Holland (23°) so you know they’ll be loving them.

Elevator Up Hoodies

It’s super rewarding to take a product from start to finish; and even more so to do it for good people. The pics above are of some hoodies we recently designed and printed for our friends at Elevator Up . I’m excited to start seeing them around Holland and GR, where one of their most recent projects (The Factory) is taking off. In fact, I’ll be coworking there for a bit this afternoon. Any good tips for parking?