an army of lovers cannot fail!


basic tee
women's teev-neck unisexwomen's v-necktank tophoodie

so this just happened. (click any picture and it will take you to the order page.)

i’ve been wanting to make a shirt with this phrase for many years but just never got around to it. this year, i finally have both the time and the motivation – i’m broke and i really want to go to fest! so here it is.

i’ve posted several pics of the different types of shirts that are available, just so you know there’s a wide variety. and a few styles even go up to 3XL in size. the color of the shirts will vary slightly from brand to brand and style to style, but generally they will all be a light grey/silver colored shirt, with black and red type in a distressed stencil style font. the shirts will be silkscreened professionally and i think will look better than anything i could print up at home.

as for the backstory… the concept of “an army of lovers” is attributable to plato in ancient greek times. the phrase “an army of lovers cannot fail” was adopted by activists in the early gay and women’s liberation movements and used widely, and rita mae brown popularized “an army of lovers shall not fail” in her poem “sappho’s reply” in the early 1970s. it’s something that has often been said in workerville amongst my family/tribe of womyn at the michigan womyn’s music festival and so, what with the whole summer of love feeling of fest these days i figured it was time for this shirt to appear.

i almost put a women’s symbol (with or without a fist) into the design but ended up deciding i’d rather leave it more universal, since it was a battlecry for the early queer and women’s movements, therefore hopefully making its appeal more widespread.

i humbly thank everyone for their support ahead of time. for the past several years since i started the pet business i haven’t really been creating art or designing anything, and i’ve really missed it. so i set an intention a few months back that i wanted more free time in my schedule so that i could get back to doing more creative stuff.. and lo and behold, several of my pet clients moved on and freed up some time in my schedule. so i’ve been working hard to get back into the creative swing of things… and designing tshirts is one of those things!! so i appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm and feedback and support – more than you’ll ever know.

ok.order away here: http://teespring.com/armyofloverscannotfail

update… and, scooters!

wow, it’s been a while since i wrote here last. sorry bout that, y’all. but ever since i made up my mind to go into the dog-walking/pet-sitting biz, it’s kinda all i’ve been doing. there’s been no time for making of art or craft. i pretty much have been walking dogs 9am-4pm every weekday, sometimes more, and pet-sitting on the weekends. and when i’m not actively caring for people’s pets, i’m recuperating from being out in this scorching heat all day. it does really take a lot out of a person. it’s been hectic, and i’m just now getting to a point where i’m learning how to tailor my schedule to have some downtime.

but i know it will get better. i will figure out how to have more free time, and how to balance out the work with the creative time and the leisure time. it’s a whole new world for me now. and it will just take a little while for me to figure it all out.

all this being said, i did actually find the time this weekend to make a fresh batch of scooter clocks, inspired by the fact that amerivespa – the national scooter rally put on by the vespa club of america – is in town here in nola this weekend. i had originally been thinking, months ago, that i was going to be a vendor at the event, setting up a booth over the weekend. but as my life took its exciting twists and turns, it ended up not really being possible. but then my friend mallory of missmalaprop.com said she had been asked to be a vendor, and since she carries some of my stuff in her online shop, i thought, well maybe i can give her a few things to try to sell at the event.

so i woke up early on saturday morning, before the heat got too bad, and whipped up a bunch of new scooter stencil clocks in different colors. (see pic above.) i have to say, it felt really good to be making something again. i had actual *fun* doing it, which was nice.

as it turned out, however, the organizers of the vendor area never got back to mallory to confirm her participation, so she didn’t end up doing it. so now i have seven fresh scooter clocks in various colors that have no way to actually be seen by the scooter-fanatical attendees of amerivespa.

so i suppose i will spend some of my time this lazy sunday afternoon posting these to my etsy shop. but if you’re interested in any of them before i get around to doing so, just email me. if you are local or in town for amerivespa, i can deliver. or, as always, i can ship to anywhere. $30 cash and carry. $8 more for shipping/paypal fees. (i charge $40 on etsy to cover the etsy fees too.)

hopefully i’ll find the time and inspiration to make some more stuff soon. stay tuned!

sale!

i decided to test out etsy’s new(ish) coupon codes features yesterday. the coupon is good for 20% off everything in my store through friday. some people have rent parties at the end/beginning of the month – i’m having a rent sale! (though, actually, the rent is covered, so now i’m working on the entergy bill! january was a sssslllooowwwww month, y’all!)

use the code: 20OFFSALE til midday friday, at which point i need to pack everything up for the freret market the next day. yes, i decided to go ahead and do it. thankfully, it looks like it will be sunny, though kinda cold. i’ll be wearing my long johns, for sure. i will hopefully have lots of new stuff (if it doesn’t all get bought up in the sale!). lots of funky handmade gifties for your valentine, and maybe even a few things to decorate for carnival. see you there!

putting it out there…

one day last week i got the sudden itch to make myself yet another website. i’ve been thinking for a while it might be nice to have a simple page for myself that was not about my art and craft, but all the other things i do and have done. sort of a calling card for all my side-gigs and other so-called professional life. (as it were.)

much to my surprise, i had a free domain registration with my hosting service, dreamhost, who i love. i’ve been using dreamhost for years and years and have never ever had any problems with them (knock on wood). i highly recommend them if you’re ever on the hunt for a hosting company.

anyways, half a day later, http://www.margaretcoble.com was born. catchy, isn’t it? i thought about trying to come up with some snappy business name or nickname but since i do so many different things and none of them are full-fledged businesses, it just seemed easier to make it a vanity site of sorts. it is, of course, all about me.  😉

you’ll notice a few things are missing now from this artbymags.com site. i moved the non-art/craft menu content over to the other site. this blog will still cover just about anything i want to talk about, but i am going to try to talk more about art, craft, my various creative projects, and my process here. and i guess if i end up having anything to say about, oh, dog-walking or digitizing vinyl records, i’ll say it over there.

for now, it’s just basically a business card site for me, very basic and not meant to garner loads of traffic. just a sign-post on the information highway. and now you know.

pretty pretty princess…

take two using this stencil. it’s not the best photo, as it was really overcast when i took the photo. the colors aren’t showing up all that well. but i like it, for the most part. i wish i had used smaller letters on the meow’s but since it’s the last layer, there’s no way to fix it without starting over basically. so i’m leaving it. i’ll fix that in the next take. (fae and i have always referred to our cat sticker as a pretty pretty princess.)

really have to get working on a stencil of the other cat, stencil, before he gets jealous!