Honey Mushrooms, Q . Cassetti, 2012, Adobe Illustrator CS5Today is catch up and then tomorrow its an early launch to drive to Amherst for a 1 p.m. meeting for Alex. I am blasting through a bunch of stuff and figured I would say hi for today.

There is a new addition to the Farmers Market images to the left…and a wreath to go with it. I just printed about a dozen of these Farmers Market images to be given as a donation to Museumwise, the fabulous folks that bring us the Museum Institute at Sagamore and that expands so many horizons for many museum professionals in NY State. Museumwise makes me proud to be a New Yorker. The small staff and board of Museumwise are interesting, smart, and really quite “startup” in their actions and thinking. They are try-ers and do-ers. They embrace and help. They build community through active networking. They are professional but open and engaged. They inspire me with their energy and desire to move the needle in the Museum and History Museums throughout our big state.

I am also offering up for their auction the design services for a logo or logotype for a museum event or show. I figure it would drive a little more money than the prints and would maybe give me a chance help out another institution. So I need to bag this stuff up with business cards, stickers and tattoos and see what happens. Rob will be my spy to see who wins the stuff, and what it went for. These are for an auction to support the Institute at Sagamore’s scholarships —worth every minute of time from this end.

I have been thinking of putting my name in the hat for a booth at the Saturday markets this summer to sell my stuff…prints, buttons, bags, a teeshirts and a snappy tote bag with Trumansburg (and bees!) on it. It would be a good way to sense the market and at the same time see how I can build t his little table business. Could be cool. I could also sell off my yarn stash too! What do you think? Should I give it a go?

The lake was splendid last night. Sad note was our arctic willow tree (which the former owners took and trimmed into a tree but its really a shrub) lost half its limbs in some big blow…So we will need to saw off the piece and hope (know) that the tree will regenerate (which it does amazingly). There was wind and a bit of rain, but we all had a peaceful and very restful evening with our Easter Lamb on the grill and music by Bill Evan (who Alex has discovered). Cool.

So, onward to standards writing and organizing.

Peach tile, Q. Cassetti, Adboe Illustrator CS5I am taking a little break as the big machine is getting an Adobe Creative Suite upgrade (5.5) and as the computer whirrs and rattles, the blue band advances, I can chat a bit with you…an electronic coffee break.

I sit here in my tower, looking out over the back forty with brilliant green grass, forsythia and frosty daffodils. The stinky allium were horizontal and frozen the other day, and this morning, they were standing tall and back in order. We can only hope for moderate cold. How crazy is this weather? The deer are back in force.

Its been busy here with work work, Farmers Market work and my farmers work. I am always reluctant to talk about work/
work as its not right…but the other two, I am happy to chat a bit about.

The Trumansburg Farmers Market. We need to boost awareness, build excitement and get more people coming to the market. That is the “this year” challenge (and ongoing). Granted, we have limited funds, but I am the queen of getting a ton for your money. So, in that spirit, we are going to start to advertise in local journals and summertime rags Thank you Amelia (she found the typo!)(advertising is really inexpensive). Additionally, we are going to have a rack card that hopefully we will put in backpacks prior to school letting out ($110 for 5M pieces from BargainBasementPrinting.com). This rack card is going to promote the market along with the free live music that is offered for a fun summer night out on the town for the family. For a wider distribution, we are going to work with an artist who is very affordable and does distribution of her own rack cards, and for a fee will take ours around to wineries etc. where our summer visitors might be. Then there is the local distribution that I think we can, as board members, put out the cards. I am ordering PET recycled tote bags from Bulletin Bag (and, she says proudly, got a community/ non profit price on them) with our summertime slogan (yes, created by M. E….”Omnivore, Herbivore, Carnivore, Localvore! More for ‘Vors at the Trumansburg Farmers Market” Big/brassy and bold. We plan on selling the price with a bit of a markup, but also giving a bunch away (a drawing every farmers market, a drawing at the local foods lectures at the Library etc.). I am looking into small banners for Main Street. And then, we might be having a few Saturday Markets (to test the concept and maybe switch out the rules a bit to give the smaller/newer farmers a shot at selling some stuff). We are going to have a pumpkin event in October, maybe a Thanksgiving market as well as a Holiday market. So…lots to plan and promote.

Then there are my farmers. Love them. Love their independence and spirit. Love how their work, growing food delights them. I am within eyeshot of two of these new logotypes being completed. Another has a few more turns. And the cidery is having the work approved by the TTB. So…a few things on the horizon for now. I would love to share the process but I can only do that after their marks have been approved by them.

I am still making Farmers Market images of fruit and vegetables…making stand alone images and then wreaths and tiles from those elements…creating little collections of things. I modified my asparagas image to show to Good Life Farm for their asparaganza (an event in May celebrating their enormous aparagas crop)—and I blundered by putting a grasshopper in the picture (fyi. as adorable as grasshoppers are, the Farmers can’t like t hem…at all…think the Bible and swarms of locusts). However, I picked up a few more tricks with warping text (never did that before) and using all the path offset, and path options in my new fave, the “appearance” panel. I am becoming a pretty good intermediate user….

There will be a set of 8 prints auctioned tomorrow at the Great Local Foods Network event at Regional Access in addition to those same 8 auctioned (probably silent) as separate images, and some Q. goody bags of stickers, tattoos, postcards and the like. Should be a fun event with music, raffles, and tons of great people.

The whirring has stopped. The disk is being ejected. Time to get back to the paying work.