humor for me has always been a defense mechanism. i figure..if someone is laughing their heart has to be getting some of that extra oxygen – Â yes?
i think it’s really amazing that people take the time out of their lives to actually email me – letting me know where they’ve seen my art, or sharing how running across my cards in an airport shortened their endless flight delay, or, more recently..how in times of dire circumstances and extreme distress, that my cards were the only ones deemed appropriate.
Really? My cards that people constantly say to me…’these are funny, but who in the world would you give them to?’ Really.
i know that i personally do NOT deal well with uncomfortable sitations involving horrific circumstances. what do you say when there simply ARE NO WORDS? i tend to wait and wait as i try to grasp the situation in my head and usually end up stressed that i’ve waited too long and now what do i do??? Even though i certainly have access to about 157,000 cards on a daily basis…i have to say, damn, i wish i had a card.
a few weeks ago someone called the studio and shared that her best friends fiance had been killed. she was beside herself, obviously, and told us that the only card she found appropriate was our ‘what fresh hell’. Having had a lot personally going on lately with some horrific family and friend circumstances, i found this not in the least surprising. (calling to let us know on the other hand was above and beyond..)
i woke this sunday a.m. to the usual myriad of emails from stores asking questions about blah blah blah and blah.. mixed in with these was an email from a woman that says..
..’got your cards today. have tried to share them as much as possible with all i know..I am expecially excited to hand deliver one to my younger sister in.(Â Â Â Â )…who is in her final stages of brain cancer and her favorite phrase EVER is mother fucker. I know this will certainly bring a much needed smile to her face. AWESOME!!’
i never in my life imagined…there seriously are no words. damn. i fucking love you people.
Thankfully we have a wonderful printer that warehouses the majority of our current (200,000??) card inventory for us. But seriously…someone was going to fucking hurt themselves. tripping over boxes and waiting for people to pass and it was loud and no one could concentrate and there wasn’t enough room and it pretty much was sucking big time!
I couldn’t make this shit up.
When i arrive at the studio in the morning the first thing i usually do is check my email. Anything that has come into our website overnight that is pertinent to me my office manager has forwarded…which is why, twice in the last month i have gotten angry emails in reference to ‘what fresh hell’ before 9 a.m. The brunt of the problem is that my business got really big, really fast, and of my 107 designs the bio on the back of my cards and canvases that says it is the artist’s ‘original prose’ is obviously correct in 105 of these cases and the other 2 slipped between the cracks when I was still schlepping to local art shows instead of being sold worldwide. This mornings email that accused me of ‘outright lying’ left me in tears to think that all i try to do is make people smile a bit and that this is a premeditated action. I am aware of my mistake and am sorry. Thank you for standing your moral ground and not buying my cards. The store that this happened in, unfortunately, is one of my largest accounts in the nation. I appreciate your letting them know that not only did “i omit credit”, but am an intentional lyer.  i’m hoping that they have the wherewithal to know that mistakes happen.
I went on sabbatical for most of the month of February and wrote a book. The book has my artwork and the stories that inspired it. The following is from the book.
 In my repertoire of sayings that I use on my artwork, there are two quotes that I, in fact, did NOT write. The most obvious of the two being ‘pull up your big girl panties and just deal with it’. The second is ‘what fresh hell is this?’ The panties quote I first saw in a dry cleaners window in Philly and thought it bore repeating. It turns out that this quote is credited to J.R. Ward, whom, if you’re not familiar, is described as a New York times best selling paranormal romance author. Excellent. I became obsessed with the fresh hell quote for a time after seeing John Leguizamo’s character in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. In researching this quote I found that it was attributed to Shakespeare, and may even possibly have been from the Bible. As it turns out, I was recently corrected and told it is from Dorthy Parker. Well said girlfriend…well said!
Sincerely, erin