How to find robots in 3 easy steps

Hi robot pals! I have three things that I need to tell you about:

  1. Live Coverage at the UICA: March 11, 7-11pm.
    This is a great opportunity to watch some local artists (like me!) create cool things right before your eyes. And then you can buy them! Proceeds go to the UICA, and the delicious food and drink at the event go into your mouth. Win/win. 25 bucks, or 10 bucks if you’re a UICA member. I’m making wooden robots with paintings on their chests that can also serve as drawing boards or notepads. Or dolls. I have been carrying them around like dolls, but that’s because I’m a crazy robot lady.20160302_121223_HDR
  2. Robot takeover at Bombadil Books: March 19, 12-6pm
    My lovely friends over at Bombadil Books are going to be out of town, so I’m taking over their shop for the day. Come visit, buy some books and pick out your favorite robot print, card or zine. This would be a great time to come chat with me about custom work! I desperately want to paint robots all over a wall in a kid’s bedroom…just an idea 🙂20160306_161646_HDR-2-2
  3. I love pop-up shops.  I’ve had so much fun setting up my little robot making station at Bombadil Books, so I’m making it my goal this spring to find more places to make that happen. The internet is fine for selling things, but it’s so much more rewarding to get to meet people and talk about what they want. The look on your faces when you see a robot that fits your specific little request (“I want two robots who are in love and meowing at each other” is a personal favorite) is delightful. If you’re a shop owner in the Midwest (please, give me a reason to come to Chicago!) let’s chat! If you have ideas and want to share them with me, I would greatly appreciate it. More robots!

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Robots + Bookstores= Love

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Last weekend I spent Friday night and Saturday afternoon drawing robot Valentine’s Day cards. So many wonderful people came in to look for books and commission little robot cards for their sweeties. I drew robots on horses, robots on runaway trains, singing robots, biking robots, robots who love the piano, and even a robot that was a cross between a wizard and a character from Jewish folklore. Really. You all had the coolest ideas, and it was beautiful to listen to you talk about your loved ones.

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Thank you to Bombadil Books. I would like to just live in your book store, or at least “pop-up” there again soon. As always, if you have ideas for robot artwork, and want me to make that happen, get in touch with me here, via the contact link, or through Facebook. Nothing makes me happier than figuring out how to create a piece of art that makes someone smile. Thank you for the smiles last weekend. Best Valentine’s Day gift ever.

xo

Alexis

 

Valentine Pop-Up!

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Look! I’m having a thing!

If you live in Grand Rapids and haven’t been to Bombadil Books at 315 S. Division, I recommend you get down there soon. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up running around Borders Books, waiting for my Dad to get off work or if bookstores have a certain magic to them, but whatever it is, I love a bookstore. I also love a local business, kind people, and peaceful spaces. Bombadil Books meets all of those requirements, which is why I’ll be spending my weekend there, February 5th and 6th, drawing robots.

I’m in the process of making Valentine’s cards right now, so I will have those for you on Friday night (6 to 9) and Saturday afternoon (12 to 6). I’m also going to be making cards, per your request. For example, maybe your friend loves puppies and pizza (because she is human, and has feelings) so you could give me 5 bucks, and I would draw a robot that expresses her love for those things, thereby expressing your love for her. Romantic love, friend love, family love, pet love, self-love–it’s all worth celebrating.

Valentine’s Day can be an annoying corporate mess if you buy into what’s being sold by most companies, but like all holidays, you are allowed to celebrate however you’d like. There is someone in your life who you love, and someone who loves you. It might not be a mushy kind of smoochy love, but who gives a crap. Love is good, and if you need a card that just reminds you or your friend how much you should be crushin’ on yourselves, then I got you.

I’ll have some non-Valentine’s cards for sale from shows past, a handful of zines, and it’s always a possibilities that I will have one or two stuffed robots hiding in my bag, if you need a snuggle buddy.

Can’t wait to see you.

xo

Buy this robot zine.

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It’s been a long January, friends. Michigan is cold, sunshine is lacking, the post-New Year’s blah is floating around, and for me, that has meant one thing: hibernate as hard as possible. As we approach February, a new month that is both short and closer to spring than the one we are currently in, I have decided to come out of hibernation to give you something: It is a robot zine. It is about feelings. I want you all to order one right now because they are small and I made them with all of my feels and love and they are only 2 dollars.

Here is where you click for the zine, aka a tiny little magazine made with paper and a copy machine and some staples.

This is the first in a series of little stories I want to tell. Robots are given the task of having feelings. They just get programmed to have them, and are left ot figure out what to do with them. Kind of like us, right? There’s some funny, there’s some real talk, and, in this issue, there are lasers.

Order one, tell me what you think, and keep an eye out for the next issue.

xo

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Making friends

Happy New Year! I’m pretty happy that it’s a new year. New beginnings and all of the freshness of that. Lovely. So lovely, in fact, that I had to make some new robots to celebrate.

I’m working on a little project that I’ll tell you all about soon, but for now I’ll just show you my little series of “robots making thing” so far.

Want one of your very own? I’ve added a listing to my etsy site, so you can order your own little bendy, unique robot to stick on your desk/next to the coffee maker/inside the medicine cabinet. All of the details on customizing your robot can be found in the listing. I made these all with so much love, so I hope that you’ll feel a bit of that. xo

I’m slightly obsessed with furniture-making robot.
Robots love throwing pottery. Who knew.
Gang of weirdos.
Look at my fancy studio, you guys!

 

Thank you, robot lovers.

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Photo credit: my Dad. Yes, my eyes are closed.

Last Friday, December 4th, I had my first gallery show. I’ve shown work before, but this was the largest body of work in a space that I had all to myself. Guess what? It was awesome! I had the best time. So many good friends came (I. Love. You.), my family showed up in waves (surprise Grandma visit?!) and I got to meet some new, amazing people (hello pregnant lady buying art for her robot-themed nursery!). You bought art, you asked me about robots, you listened and told me stories. Artists of all ages colored robot coloring sheets, which I will be posting soon. I especially loved the little kids who initialed their work. Very professional.

I’ve been reflecting on the experience since we took the show down Saturday night, and as simple as it might sound, I just feel grateful. I’m thankful for the people who helped me, and taught me new things (I kind of know how to stretch canvas now!) and lent a hand and told me that everything was going to work out. It did! How crazy is that!?

While I’m wildly grateful for those who helped me out and supported the show with your robot-y purchases, I’m also quite grateful for the robots themselves. I stopped creating art a few years ago, and all of this painting and drawing and wanting to share what I’ve done is a relatively recent thing. I’ve made some big life changes in the last year, and while it’s been hard, the rewards have been magical. As I started to rebuild myself and figure out what I needed, the robots kind of crept back out from the sketchbooks and boxes I’d hid them in for the previous few years. Letting myself have a creative practice again was a sign to myself that things were heading in the right direction.

So thank you, for supporting my art, or me, or both. I feel all the love right now and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

xo

Alexis

Gallery opening, December 4

It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything, but that’s just because I’ve been roboting my heart out, aka getting ready for my show at Craft House, here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This Friday is the reception, from 6-9p, and I would be so happy to see your pretty face there. I’ll have handmade and printed cards that I’ve been creating over the last few months. I’ll have screen printed shirts and onesies because guess what? I want to see a baby in a robot onesie. It sounds amazing and you probably know at least one baby who could use one, right? There will be little prints, a few canvas pieces a few other roboty odds and ends. I don’t want to give this surprise away, but I will say that there is a small army of robots that you will want to hug. That’s all I’m saying.  Oh, and I almost forgot: Bring your kiddos! I’ll have robots for them to color.

Craft House is at 40 S Division

Friday 6-9p (reception)

Saturday 12-6 open gallery/come say hi/color robots with me.

xo

Alexis

 

Why make the same thing over and over again?

ProcessWhy would you make the same thing over and over? Georgia O’Keefe endlessly painted flowers. Frieda Kahlo painted so many self-portraits. Chuck Close painted face after face, in a very similar style. Even so, we see change in them. We see growth and evolution somehow, when we look at their work as a whole. There’s something unique in every petal O’Keefe brought to life.  I wonder if they knew that when they were making each painting. I wonder if they ever thought “Why do I keep making these?”. I wonder if they ever felt a little crazy for the repetition.

Today, a friend of mine asked, “Why robots?”, and it hit me hard for some reason.  Maybe it’s because I’m hanging my first real show this month. The number of robots on every surface and wall of my home startles me every morning when I come downstairs. I’m faced with them, and I can’t look away, nor do I want to. I love them. So I felt like it was a good question, and one that deserved some thought. Why paint or draw the same things for years?

My initial response is that I went to school for Industrial Design, so I worked with 3-D objects, in perspective, and the robots came out of that. Years of drawing vacuums and toasters will h
ave an effect on a person. Also,  I loved someone who reminded me of a robot. He had a heart, I was sure of that, but he didn’t know exactly what it was for, or how to use it. I imagined that my made-up robots had hearts, and were also confused by them. That felt universal, in some ways. Having the ability to feel millions of different emotions, but not being able to have control of them, is frustrating. I felt frustrated with the robots in my life, and the robot that I was sometimes.

So, I know why I started making them, but the real question was, why didn’t I stop?

The answer that I finally came to was that the robots feel like home. They are the constant that I can come back to. My friend suggested that we create the same thing over and over again because it evolves and changes with us. Maybe there are small changes in the moment, but over time, there’s a really significant difference from where you started. Even as it changes, it remains yours. The robots are always mine, no matter what they look like. So, I make them because they are mine to make.  Like many things we think we need to over explain, the simple reason is good enough, because it’s true.

Making space

Hey, check out this messy paint bomb of a living room/entry way/studio in my house!

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I try to keep things contained, but bottles and brushes and paint-caked plates proliferate, like weeds in a garden, and some mornings when I come downstairs, I see this disheveled corner and I think “if someone comes over today, they will think I’m crazy”. There are worse things to be, so I clean it up, or I don’t, and I make a robot or two (or start one, or finish one) and head to work. Other mornings, I fly down the stairs, pass my robots, say “hey”, and then head to work without even touching a pen to paper.

Either way, I know that having some sort of dedicated space to paint makes me paint more often. If I don’t see the thing I want to be spending time on, I will forget about it. Or the thing will be on the edge of my mind, in the place where good intentions live. I had to put my paint supplies directly in the center of my house to make sure I didn’t ignore them. I turned my kitchen table into a desk. I figure that I won’t forget to eat, just because the table has been re-purposed, but painting, I could forget about.

Maybe you don’t have the space in your home to set up a crazed art studio, but a little corner should do the trick. Get your knitting/painting/model train supplies out and into your line of sight. If writing is your craft, set up some sort of writing desk that serves as a reminder to write, even if you end up writing from the couch. Get your stuff out! Leave your running shoes in the middle of the room if that helps you make running a regular practice. I don’t have science to back this up, but it seems like a pretty good experiment. You should try it and then tell me about it! Does creating space or at least a dedicated presence help your personal practice? I’m so curious!

xo

Losing control

My painting is getting messy. I’m making little paintings in preparation for bigger pieces. In trying to figure out certain gestural shapes and lines, these robots are all over the place. I picture robots rolling around in giant pools of paint, and when they get up, the floor is covered in paintings like this one.

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While I need to keep perspective and line weight and all of those cool things in mind while I’m painting, I’ve found that letting go a little, relinquishing some control in the name of experimentation, to be freeing. It feels like screaming into the waves on a windy day, or some other exhausting release. Assuming that a personal practice teaches us things about ourselves (I’m just going with that assumption) I feel like there’s something to learn from this act of letting go.

I hate letting go of control. I feel most comfortable when I can control myself, what I eat, what I wear, how I sound, how I appear. It’s tiring. Sometimes though, I can let go, and let things happen. It can be amazing and it can be scary. I don’t profess to have the answers here, on how to let go and not care, I just think that finding ways to let go, that make you feel good, is helpful. Painting works for me. There’s control and there’s a distinct lack thereof, all at once. The act itself feels rewarding, and I don’t get to hung up and judgmental with the outcome. I fall in love with it a little bit every time, and I don’t worry about where it’s going. I’m hoping it rubs off in other parts of my life.

So that’s today’s reason to keep painting. I get to let go, and give myself a break. That’s something we could all use a little more of, right?

xo