I've been focused alot on arranging the art in my apartment this week. I finally got my vintage seascape, and while it was a little too large for where I needed it in the bedroom, it fit nicely above the lower, fiction bookshelves in the living room. The rest is a mix of flower and/or bird prints, mirrors, poster art, a few scattered peices of my own, some prints by fave photographers, a couple thrifted embroidery pieces, and some odds and ends either collected or given to me by friends who are artists. I used to go for bigger pieces, but actually now I tend toward smaller groupings.

Otherwise, it's a quiet weekend. I have a poem I was trying to get to work on all week that needs fixing and Maggie Nelson's Bluets to finish reading (loving it so far.) I have to retake some slip pics that were done in bad lighting, and maybe a couple other little things for the shop. I'm still in hibernation mode most weekends and am looking forward to spring when I can get out a little more in the sunshine.

fashion friday: winter wishlist

winter wishlist by wickedpen featuring ballerina shoes

things I need more of in my life:

old paintings & botanical prints
sleek midcentury modern couches
vintage suitcases
luxuriously scented dyptique candles
embroidered pillows
slinky slip dresses
soft hoodie sweaters
mary jane ballet flats

new from dancing girl press

Easy Beat
by Brittany Ober
dancing girl press, 2011
order here

Brittany Ober was born in Lititz, Pennsylvania. She holds a B.A. from Muhlenberg College in English and Art History. Her work has been published in Canteen. Brittany currently lives in New York and works in an art gallery in Chelsea.

I've been adding all sorts of new hair clips, flasks, and spring candle scents. Enjoy!

film notes

I am SO not a person who knows very much about film, but I'm always pretty quick, especially in period peices, to be swept away by gorgeous costuming and set design choices. I was watching An Education the other night and could not get over how gorgeous and striking every single shot was on an aesthetic level. There are a few others that have struck me in a similar way, almost so much that I miss lines of dialogue and important plot points because I'm distracted by the scenery, movies like the Diane Arbus biopic Fur



and the stunning Marie Antoinette (actually pretty much any other Sophia Coppola film also.) there is a certain meticulousness paid to every scene, every nuance, every detail that makes them absolutely beautiful, not only for what is going on in the scene, but the scene itself.

I have been sorting and organizing my shelves a little and separating out old literary journals, duplicates of contributor copies, etc. I plan on taking most of them in small increments to work for the library's "free table" near the door (which is a mix of donation duplicate cast-offs and library staff unwanteds), so if anyone is hanging around down at Columbia who's looking for literary freebies , you might want to stop by later this week to see what is there for the taking. I also will probably bring in some old Poets and Writers issues which have outlived their usefulness...

fashion friday: at your leisure

at your leisure by wickedpen featuring a black maxi skirt

My throat feels itchy and scratchy and I keep telling myself I am not getting sick again so early after the last time, but it wouldn't surpise me, given a certain lack of sleep (odd work schedule insonmnia), waiting in the freezing cold for one too many late buses, and general anxiousness/stress. Winters sometimes nearly kill me. I also kept sneezing yesterday, so it doesn't look good. I am fortifying myself with lots of delicious blueberry tea and, while probably not helpful, stuffed pizza from my favorite place, and hopefully the rest will work itself out. I also keep moving furniture around in my apartment, nothing large or major, but sidetables, lamps, trunks, artwork. I really just need to give it a through cleaning, the dust bunnies may just overrrun me (and certainly don't help the throat/sinus situation.)

sneak peak

I've been working on a little zine project the past couple weeks with collages and found text. I won't have time to get them all printed and assembled till after the next batch of chaps is complete, but here is a little looksee. I'm hoping to do a whole small series of limited edition 5 x 5 art zines.

dgp 2011/2012

We are excited to announce next season's lineup of books, all of which will be appearing starting in May and continuing through mid 2012.


if a thermometer / Bronwen Tate

want badly / Tricia Taaca

In the Madame’s Hatbox / Stephanie Berger

Edith and Aurelia: A Romantic Tragedy / Trisia Eddy

Orthexia / Kristin Sanders

Strategies for the Bromidic / Erin Mullikin

Going Without / Ellen Caswell

Floor Baby / Ally Harris

The Soap Trees / Mara Vahratian

Some Assembly Required / Susan Lewis

Guns & Butter/ Montana Ray

Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair / Sarah Sloat

Disem(body): A tracing / Arianne Zwartjes

The Dictator's Guide to Good Housekeeping / Valerie Wallace

Are me / Anna Eyre

Poems for Business Travelers / AE Loveridge

Dendochronology / Jane Wong

Roof Picnic Skies, New York / Jill Leininger

Blue Trajectory / Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom

Fascicle / Rebecca Dunham

Trollops in Love / Gina Abelkop

Midheaven Leo / Laura Carter

Wonder Girl in Monster Land / Brenda Sieczkowski

Given / Emileigh Barnes

The Story of my Eyes / Cindy Savett

You are not a bird / Emily Jern-Miller

Slap Leather / Jessica Jewell

The Circus of Forgetting / Barbara Duffey

25 little red poems / Angela Veronica Wong

Conveyance / Ruth Williams

The Outside of Sleep / Florencia Varela

Come, Clearing / Jackie White

Did I Mention There’s Gambling and Body Parts? / Mary Christine Delea

The Framework of Man: Found Poems / Mary Ann Abbot

What to Make of a Diminished Thing / Marjorie Manwaring

The five parts of love: confabulating Sappho / Annette C Boehm

Favored daughter / Megan Kaminski

TBA / Carolyn Guinzio

Tinder / / Heart / Lisa M. Cole

Sex With Buildings: Prose Poems / Stephanie Barbe Hammer

Whispery her eye the flight / Caroline Brooke Morrell

The Quiet Winter / Carrie Bennett

Dear Sensitive Beard / Caroline Cabrera

Let Her / Laura Goldstein

Thimbles / Sarah Colona

You Aren’t in this Movie / Letitia Trent

Circumstances of House & Moon / Caroline Klocksiem

Accidents of Distance / Kirsten Jorgenson

Invisible Girls / Erika Lutzner

Crooked / Heather Angier

Little Eva, the Insomniac from Mars / Kate Schapira

Ophelia Unraveling / Carol Berg

Urban Animal Expeditions / Katy Ellis

Wreck Idyll / Trina Burke

Live Girls / Juliet Kerico

Floor Baby / Ally Harris

plus a couple more titles, TBA.

My mind feels very blowsy and windswept lately. Clear, but also sort of hollow. Some of it might be the weather, but some of it is probably a certain occasional jadedness I feel taking over with just about everything: art, love, daily life. A certain roughness in the fabric of things that makes me abrasive and hard-shelled. I am still sleeping more than usual and dream alot about building things, lately collages, but sometimes houses made from big blocks that look like words. I wrote a really good poem late in the week, probably the first thing I haven't dismissed as garbage in the last couple of months. Still I feel poetically stuck, like I'm waiting for something I'm not even sure I want anymore. Something I'm not sure I need so badly anymore as I did five or so years ago. So I will continue waiting some more. I have all sorts of things I could be working on, but there is always the missing ingredient, the missing piece, that prevents finishing the things I need to finish. This could be about love as well, though I have probably all the pieces but just can't put them all together or make sense of them. These moods pass pretty quickly then I am back to normal, but I've been trying to track the thought patterns that lead me here and it usually involves poetry, money, or romantic troubles (pretty much the sole sources of conflict in my head at any given time). I just need to kick them before they land me in a funk.

The good news is a certain amount of creative discontent does lead to certain hands-on productiveness. All weekend I've been watching old episodes ofThe Office and working on easy things like necklaces and hair clips for the shop. Also, some collages for a little zine project. Nice, simple work that keeps me in the world of the senses instead of in my head all the time. Since I'm working that odd shift I hate, there aren't any daylight hours in the studio, but once we return to the usual semester routine next week, I will have a big shop update once I can get some photos in the sunlight (provided we have any..I hear a cold (er) snap is on it's way)..

fashion friday: hello 1993

hello 1993 by wickedpen featuring long sleeved tops

I've been watching old episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, mostly an awful show that I pretty much stopped watching after my first year of college (and made even more awful post-Buffy), but the fashion from that 4th season has me all nostalgic for early 90's fashion---floral dresses with chunky boots and a proliferation of ribbon chokers like in every scene. We're apparently in the midst of a 90's fashion revival in general, which will no doubt be less painful than the 80's one. I also fell in love with a pair of semi-chunky black lace-up I saw someone wearing on the bus, and think I might have to be getting some. Of course, I pretty much spent my own early 90's in jeans and flannels and maybe the occasional flowing hippie skirt...there was an unfortunate tapestry vest / white t-shirt combo, but we won't talk about that.

Today, there is snow, a whole, messy lot of it. I 've been treading carefully and combatting my neurosis, the one that makes me think I'm going to slip on some ice or snow and wind up in traction (or possibly my body in a snowbank that won't be uncovered til spring.) I am wearing my more snow friendly brown boots, though, and enough clothes for several people (socks under tights under leggings under slip under dress under cardigan) so hopefully I'll be safe and sound. Actually, I would love it if I could just sleep until April, since I cannot quite get enough of it these days. I feel a little like I've been drugged. I'd hoped to make announcement on the new dgp titles that have been selected (you will love them, I promise), but I'm still waiting on a couple poets final response. Otherwise I am tweaking Robyn's (& Robin's) book which if I can get the galleys done in the next week, we are just about ready to go. And there are other books, mid-production, that need to be finished off and released. (Britanny Ober, Joanna Novak, Jules Gibbs, and Emilie Lindemann) plus a ton more that I haven't yet started layout on. If I look at it as seasons, I don't feel so far behind (ie, this is the 2010-2011 season of books), so we still have another few months to go before the next batch. I've actually scheduled books for 2011 and 2012 under this sort of calendar, so hopefully that will help. I am also planning on suspending the open submissions period for this summer (2011) since I am taking enough to last through mid 2012 when we will open up again. There were just too many good things to let them go. Add in a couple zine projects I have cooking, the Arcana deck, and dgp will be very busy the next year or so.

photo goodness: Elidh.McMillan

When I was doing the faux album cover meme on facebook, my random photo turned out to be from Elidh.McMillan. When I checked out her flickr I found all sorts of cool stuff..Enjoy!

fashion friday: january

january by wickedpen featuring frye boots

Yes, it's Fashion Friday..(or the return of in my effort to blog more this year)..

I loving layering gray shades lately, warm cozy knitted things and mood gray blues. I think it might partly be my recent obsession with seascapes (see below), or maybe partly the gray January surroundings, nevertheless gray is one of my favorite colors any season.I was staring at some pigeons on the sidewalk yesterday (becuase that's the weird sort of thing I do), and though they creep alot of people out and are mostly a nuisance, their colors are really beautiful if you look closely, the layered gray ones, that green/blue irridescence, but especially the blondish/brownish ones..they definitely get a bad rap in the bird world.

shipwrecks of lake michigan

I am obsessed with finding the perfect vintage seascape for my bedroom wall this week, the perfect combination of grays and blues with maybe a ship in the background or being dashed against the rocks. I've always wanted to do more research into Lake Michigan shipwrecks, the Michigan Triangle, etc.. I've seen how lovely and brutal that water can be sometimes. Apparently there are a ridiculous number of boats at the bottom of it, and quite a few planes. One of my favorite city ghost tales is a pilot (WWII-era I think) who can occasionally be seen crossing Sheridan where it curves up along the cemetary at the far north border of the city. (I've only been around up there in the daylight, but eep! it's creepy enough just navigating those curves and not winding up in the lake.)

2011

This is turning out to be the year of rushed mornings and grumpy bus rides. Or maybe the year of creepy phonecalls and cold hands. Possibly the year of blackbirds falling from the sky. I planned for it to be the year of sexy new boots and poetry, and there is some of that, but not nearly enough. Maybe the year of large sweet oranges and soft beds. I am blissfully unencumbered for the entire month of January in terms of weekends, so have some stretches of blissfull time to work on various projects. My mind is sort of scattershot lately but I feel like things are bubbling under the lid, so maybe there will be less worry in general. I'm still a little coughy, but breathing much easier than the weekend. I am also looking forward to what we will call THE GREAT SOUTHERN ROAD TRIP (tm) in March, as I have deemed it, which will have me gallivanting all over the southern states, including family visits in Oklahoma and Mississippi and a wedding in San Antonio somewhere in there. stay tuned...

In an effort to clear out and make room for the new, we are offering 20% off on all purchases of original collages, assemblages, shadowboxes, and prints. The coupon will apply to anything else you add to your cart as well, including all paper goods and accessories, so enjoy!