Saintly St. Ana

Long time no blog! I'm back. I've been somewhat busy recently with a new project a few friends and myself put together- Rio Sangre Print Collective . A little over a month ago we all got together and decided to split the cost of some paper and the rest is history! JK, not really though. A lot of stuff happened between then and now but that's essentially how it all got started. Our booth at the Southwest Print Fiesta This past weekend we participated in the Southwest Print Fiesta in Silver City. It's the first event of its kind in Southern New Mexico (as far as I know) and I'm so grateful we got to be a part of it! Basically printmakers from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico got together to print, talk about prints, and buy prints. Pretty much a bunch of nerdy printing stuff. The main part of the event that we participated in was setting up as a vendor and selling our prints together. Being that we're a rather new collective we don't really hav...

If you've read my last couple of posts you know that I've been busy putting together a zine for the ABQ Zine Fest which was just this past weekend!  The final product along side our custom pins! We ended up pulling together a pretty good variety of work to put into the zine. Early on we decided to keep it purely visual and use as little text as possible. I thought it was a pretty interesting approach considering that most zines I'd seen either had a combination of both text and visuals or just text. I'm not sure if that idea just wasn't as appealing as I thought it would be or if it wasn't the right audience, but we didn't end up selling that many. Initially I was disappointed with the lack of sales, but  it wasn't because I was expecting to make a ton of money.  I was mostly disappointed because it didn't seem to grab people's attention like I thought. I guess some people are just into certain things and you can't really control the w...

We're making a zine! And by "we" I mean my friend, Anne, and I.  There's an annual zine fest in Albuquerque and this year we're going to collaborate and attend! Anne went last year with her own zine and had an awesome time. When I realized that the event was coming up again, it seemed like a good idea to finally attend since I had been meaning to for a while. I was interested in collaborating because I wasn't sure if I could come up with enough content to fill a zine (and keep it engaging) by myself. It's also fun to collaborate in general. I think Anne and I have similar aesthetic interests so it works out well. We're also having other friends contribute so it's going to have lots of different styles and perspectives in it. I'm so excited to be working with friends again. It's something I definitely miss about school. It's easier to get inspired when you have other people's feedback and are able to bounce ideas off each oth...

This is essentially two Weekend Adventures in one because, well, life happens. Last weekend (Labor day weekend) I went to a Purity Ring concert and it was amazing! Definitely exceeded my expectations. They had awesome, over the top lighting that tied the whole experience together. They talk about their show being an experience in  this  interview, plus they play a few songs live and they sound amazing! People love lights, by the way. I really love going to live shows, but I always forget that at larger shows there will always be larger crowds. Seems obvious but for some reason it always takes me by surprise. I always get overwhelmed in those situations but this show was definitely worth enduring it all. Inspired by Purity Ring I also got to go to a very special birthday party last weekend. My friend Beverly came into town and celebrated her daughter's first birthday while they were here! How cuuuuuuuute, right?! Beverly is the first person I've known IRL to ha...

Another one of my friends has moved away. Cue F.R.I.E.N.D.S. theme song. I'm not trying to be dramatic but sometimes I feel like everyone around me is moving forward with their lives and I'm stuck in the same place. I couldn't be happier for my gal pal- she's moving to Boulder, CO (!) with her gal pal and they're gonna have a blast being Colorado gals. She's going back to school in an awesome city and I know she's going to do awesome things. Having another friend move away obviously bums me out, but it also reminds me that I'm not moving forward as fast as they are or even as quickly as I had planned. My friend Annabelle and I at her going away party. #dirtymirror Lately I've found myself being more anti-social and in turn having a hard time making new friends/meeting new people. I've also been dealing with an increased level of social anxiety, so that always helps. Not that I'm unhappy with my circle of friends at the moment, b...