Planning and making

Team Valenzuela is making stuff and planning our year of crafting and art making. I got a new scroll saw and I love it. I have been cutting wooden shapes and just generally learning how to use it. It is hard enough with a jigsaw so I figured I should just get a scroll to make things easier on my self.

I have been spending lots of time with my little bird lately because of some health issues with her great gramma(Nana, is feeling better now). That has given us a chance to make movies art and the other day we made these awesome wings just for fun. They really didn't take that long. Melissa was at work so we had to wait for her to get home to sew them up. She is a much more skilled sew-er than I am.

Also another thing is that I have been meeting up with some other crafters that are sort of in the same boat as I am building a small business in order to not have to get a real job. I have found it to be so helpful and invigorating. We have been setting goals for each other and keeping each other on task. I am now in the process of organizing my home studio and it is a real challenge. Every thing that was not cube like ended up in that room so stacking everything is out of the question. I am just purging lots of junk and not assigning sentimental value to things that don't deserve it. CLEAN! it feels really good to be amble to COMMIT to my business and my art. Luckily I have been doing very well have a nice lump of real cash to invest and I don't necessarily need it at the moment. we have lots of new hand crafted stuff to unveil in the next few weeks. Thanks for reading and BE WELL.

Lots of new stuff to put your starving eyeballs at.

So it truly has been a while since I updated this blog. Every thing is going swimmingly and we have been very busy here in the last few weeks at Team Valenzuela Headquarters. We have been lovingly crafting and making much art for to sell at the Syracuse Pepper Market. Missy was sick for about a month and that put us back a little bit but we are up to speed now and have lots to show for it. 

This year is the first year that the Salty Ladies of Syracuse will be doing a second Indie Craft Market. I am sure it is going to be amazing. Everything this lovely ladies touch turns out fabulous. They are very smart about marketing and branding not to mention they all genuinely seem to be having a great time and that is contagious. I only wish I could be hanging out more often and go to more events around Craft Chemistry which is kind of the hub of cool indie arts and craft shit in Syracuse. Any way check out some of the stuff we will be selling this coming weekend.

New fun stuff.

Here are some pics of a couple new screens. Lots more to come! Just wait! The painted signs are killer!

A long time gone

We are back! I have to say things have been very busy here at Valenzuela Manor as of late and we are just crawling out of a mountain of work. I have been showing paintings in galleries and learning to tattoo. Melissa has been teaching her kids at school and taking care of us. Little birdy has been busy learning her ABC's and drawing and dancing and playing pretend with her hands. We are now on track to craft and make all kinds of stuff for up coming fairs and what not.

without art the soul would Perish

IMG_8808, a photo by cayetanovalenzuela on Flickr.

Salt City 2011

Melissa and I have been busting ass getting ready for the Salt City Urban Art and Craft Market. Here are a couple of teasers:

BABY RADICAL!!!

So I t has been much too long but here I am getting ready for baby bird's fist birthday! She took her first steps the the other day and it was of course awesome. Her hair is out of control flowing madly in every directions little curls in the wind. She is saying mama and dada and bananananananana and kitty. All vital information for here to be able to communicate. Our little birdy has five teeth. The two top ones have a little gap that is so endearing when she smiles big. Melissa and I have been truly enjoying having the summer off being able to hang out and spend a lot of uninterrupted time with her. Both her and I are not looking forward to going back to work. I think it will be particularly hard on Melissa. We have been reading to here and she seems to love books not only for the bright pictures but also the funny sound they make when torn. We have taken her to a few art shows and that has been cool and I feel like we need to take her to experience more things. Although i do not agree with the Zoo we took here to the one in Syracuse and she seem to really enjoy it. She got to pet the elephant and she didn't bat an eyelash. But like I said I don't like zoos so I don't think we will be going back there. There are some animal sanctuary places around I think that kids can pet and feed animals.
Melissa and I don't have any land to garden on so we decided to grow plants on the porch and that has been going ok. we have harvested basil and that is about it. we have tomato plants but no tomatoes. There is one bell pepper that is still ripening and carrots that are VERY small. I still have a lot to learn about container gardens. I think the main thing there is that there is really not enough sunlight. I can't wait to move to someplace with some sun. Birdy likes to go hang out on the porch while we water the plants. Porch time is family time. We have also been getting ready for some craft markets were we will be set up as Team Valenzuela we will be selling my paintings, Melissa's photos, stuffed mustache neck pillows and quilted paper. Maybe some actual quilts/ sh'blankets (quilt made from layered sheets) well see how much we actually get made.

Woolgathering from the edge of our ship....

So we are a little over three months and Josephine's personality is really starting to blossom. She is so happy! This whole dad thing is amazing. Melissa is going back to work next week and that is really hard for us. Although not having money to buy diapers is even harder so we do what we must. Melissa really wants to be able to stay home and I wish she could but we just don't make enough for that to be possible right now.
I have been dreaming of buying a house and trying to be as self sustainable as possible in the next few years. I mean I read somewhere that children can be told what to do by their parents but modeling is the best way to teach. That sounds pretty solid to me. So I really want to be able to have a little place outside of town with a bunch of land so we can garden and can and have a big studio and and and... Man I was talking to some of my buddies and we sort of got on this kick that we could all buy a house together and live in a little community. My heart filled with hope. I love this idea. I think even if they are not as serious as I am, I am going to build little guest houses on our land just to entice them to live with us. I can picture it now. Baking bread, growing pumpkins, having house shows with our close friends, fires to roast corn. Perhaps this is a little overly idealistic but really, what makes this impossible? Nothing. all we need to do is to do it. No one needs to show us what our lives should look like.
I have thought this for a while. We are stuck in this narrow lane of life structures and I want something different. I think a lot of people do. Everyone I have spoken to about this is in agreement. Living off the grid would be so awesome. I just can't ever seem to figure out how to get to there from here. It takes lots of money. That is the sad truth. You cant leave the system behind unless you engage in the system wherein lies the trap. For now we try to get a little closer to living in balance with our environment. I am going to try really hard to be vegetarian. I have been in this process for a few years now. It was just hard because so much good Mexican food is meat. Now that I know how to make vegetarian tamales I think I will be ok. We are going to raise Josie vegetarian too we have decided. Later on she will make her own choice but for now I think we can feed her good nutritious vegetarian food. Hopefully when we have a garden she will be able to eat local too. I find my self wondering where my food came from lately. Food from half a world away and packed with preservatives and chemicals don't exactly make me feel healthy. I had an apple the other day that seemed like it was sprayed with lysol and dipped in a vat of wax. Disgusting. I miss my mom's vegetable garden. You could eat the snow peas right off the vine. and it was delicious.
I just know that this walmart/television/music video hyper-sexualized/non-culture is not the environment I want to raise my daughter in. I want her to be able to question the practices that are shoved down our throats. I want a Homemade life for her. DIY culture is addictive. The satisfaction you get from making something yourself and being able to use it is just amazing. I mean I have always loved making stuff. In high school my sisters and I always made or altered our clothes. And yeah at first Mom would get pissed but after a while she would help us figure out how to bleach and rip my pants for maximum punkness or sew a Ramones patch onto my hoodie. She is a crafter herself. Mom taught me how to sew when I was pretty young. I remember her always being in her little room sewing till all hours of the night. A little orange light glowing from twilight till midnight. Even now the sound of the sewing machine soothes me to the bone. Mom made a quilt from my old bleached jeans when I grew out of them. She had been collecting my jeans and cutting them into beautifully irregular squares. That quilt is one of my most prized possessions. It is warm and made with love. That is the sort of thing I want to pass down to my daughter. The kind of appreciation that comes with making something with your hands and knowing that it was hewn from a love that can only be forged in the furnace of a family hearth. Thanks Mom for showing me that.