I couldn’t make this shit up.

Erin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:15:11 +0000

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

laughing in the face of worldmageddon…

Erin — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:32:27 +0000

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 – 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.( )…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.

New digs for ESArt.

Erin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:04:23 +0000

so. i’m a little compulsive. OK OK OK. i’m ALOT compulsive (and that’s the least of my problems!).

After returning home from the winter trades in February we were fantasmastically extremely busy (WOOT!!!) ..and were still working out of mycarriage house garage. Really. 5 of us. and a dog. and my kids coming and going. 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!

On a Tuesday i said ‘this is bullshit we need to start looking for a place to move’..on wed we saw something, on thurs a.m. we looked at it…on Monday we had the keys. Yup. that’s how I roll.

Here’s (finally!) some picks of our new Erin Smith Art digs..

well, I’m currently renovating the old studio into a home office/whatever room. I’ll have to post pics now of the ‘before’ and ‘after’. I’m just sayin…we moved from 500 square feet into 2500 square feet and filled the place up. I have no idea where the hell everything was. it just was.

cheers, e

congratulations graduate!

Erin — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:00:07 +0000

‘mom, why does that car have “senior” written across the back of it?’

—–because that person is graduating from high school and is celebrating and letting everyone know it.

‘how do you know? maybe it’s an old person that wants to warn the people behind them?’

—–um, yes…..

from the hands of babes

Erin — Mon, 09 May 2011 20:45:02 +0000

i don’t think my children have ever actually ‘gotten’ me anything for Mother’s day. They’re still young, well, 10 & 12…so it’s not like they’re heading off to Macy’s and buying some prebasketed gift crap. They usually make some cards, some paper flowers..you know.

They don’t get dragged to many outdoor art festivals any more. They’re old enough to stay home by themselves for pretty long periods of time, and they tend to be very responsible. As in, they’ll call me to ask if they can have a cookie or finish off the sesame sticks. really.

Well, last weekend they hemmed and hawed when i made them hang out for about 7 hours at the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta. Overall i’d say they did a pretty good job, and I trust them (and I guess 60,000 strangers enough) to let them roam around on their own for most of the day. I gave them each $20 and when they’d occationally stroll back, they’d have frozen lemonaide, or an icee or some such crap.

Imagine my surprise yesterday as they presented me with a box for Mother’s Day. As I peeled back the layers of paper and packaging i have to admit i was speechless. They explained how the artist had told them they had made an excellent selection, as the frosted glass in this particular bottle really showed off the candle light and the fact that most of it was frosted was just a bonus feature.

They did it all by themselves, (well, my friend Robin secreted it home on her scooter for them.. thanks Robin and it couldn’t be any more, well….perfect.

votive candle cloche

thank goodness we moved so we have room for new crap…

Erin — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:03:02 +0000

i don’t know that anyone has noticed particularly..but we have added a crap ton of liscensed stuff to our website. why now? well, i got a bee in my bonnet in february as i almost tripped over 19 boxes and ping ponged off 2 people and went headfirst into a card rack.

and that has what?? to do with it you ask..

i said ‘we need to move..we need more room…this is total b.s…someone is going to get hurt! (me)’ The very next day we saw a building, looked at it, signed a lease (thursday) and had keys on Monday. SHAZAM.

I spent the next 3 weeks moving all of our crap from our 500 foot studio to our new 2200 foot studio..while everyone around me continued to work so that we didn’t disrupt our service. At the end of that 3 weeks the ENTIRE 2200 FEET was FULL. I don’t know where the hell everything was in the old place but at lease we can find it now. then i went to Belize. but now i’m back..

which is why we now have stuff on the website. i found the boxes.

Newest cocktail napkins..

Cocktail Shakers from Inviting Co.

Stainless steel Travel Mugs from Inviting Co.

playground fail

Erin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:31:47 +0000

these came to me by way of http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com. while it was an entertaining article on playground procedure concerning your and others children, these are the two extremely inappropriate highlights. you can thank me later.

this is Stooopid…with a capital S.

Erin — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 16:39:45 +0000

So. I’m not a good emailer. (i am better at it than phone calls though..) As a result, I don’t often get the dread ‘forwarded messages’. Well i got this one. I can obviously see the premise but it’s just stupid. Stoopid. I’m 43 years old and while I am environmentally aware and recycle and filter my own water and yada yada…I’ve NEVER had a conversation with someone about how the generation before ours fucked up the world for us. I mean..really?? This is someone on a soapbox that had better thank their lucky stars for technology otherwise their paltry display of ‘awareness’ would never be deleted from from 200,000 inboxes when people could have been out planting trees. (the irony that i’m reposting it NOT lost on me. really.)

this is stupid. any checker at publix that would tell an old lady she needed to bring her own bags is an ass. i leave mine taking up space in the back of my 9 passenger suv EVERY time and no one has ever said anything to me. plus…they’re not strong enough to carry all of the plastic bottles i buy.
just sayin.
xxoxox, e

We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t havethe green thing back in my day.”
�
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. �
The former generation did not care enough to save our environment.”
�
He was right, that generation didn’t have the green thing in its day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles,�
soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.�
The store sent them back to the plant to be washed�
and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
�
But they didn’t have the green thing back in that customer’s day.
�
In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.
�
But she was right. They didn’t have the green thing in her day.
�
Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers�
because they didn’t have the throw-away kind.�
They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.
�
Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house -�
not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you.
When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail,�
they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it,�
not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
�
Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline�
just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
�
But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.
�
They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty�
instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time�
they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
�
But they didn’t have the green thing back then.
�
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus�
and kids rode their bikes to school or walked�
instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.�
They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.�
And they didn’t need a computerized gadget�
to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
�
But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn’t have the green thing back then?

Upon further pondering..maybe i’m not the current ‘generation’ the author is referring too? In that case fuck you twice because i didn’t need to also be told on a Saturday morning that in addition to the world going to hell in a handbasket…. that i’m also old.

Happy Easter ya’ll.�

Halloweenie

Erin — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:50:23 +0000

I don’t know what it is about Halloween that i find so fabulous…because i end up getting pissed off every year at the caravans of cars that flock into our neighborhood and come up to the house in DROVES with no costumes and grocery store plastic sacks for themselves and every baby at home that couldn’t make it. Even the ADULTS come up and do the same thing. I called a kid out last Sunday, ‘what are you supposed to be??’ says i to kid with NO costume. “I’m a Worker.” He had been coached apparently..but I would have fired him. A little effort here people?

One of my favorite days as a kid was when Halloween fell on a school day. Everyone wore their costumes to school and at some point during the day we all would do a parade thru the hallway and all the classrooms so that you got to see everyone elses costumes. I don’t know if Northern school still do this, but my children were both born in Atlanta. Ok, who am i kidding, in the virtual HOOD in Atlanta! Halloween is frowned on at their schools..i couldn’t even mention it or i’d reap the wrath of their former elementary school principal. From my understanding this is due to “cultural” differences – which I don’t have a freakin clue what they are. Regardless, I still make a big deal of it, as do a number of my neighbors. Had a big party this year in the afternoon before trick-or-treating so the kids could still see each others costumes. Some times you just have t go with it you know?

new stuff and product development

Erin — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:31:08 +0000

Our newest items for Luckie Street have arrived in our studio and I have to say that I love them! Let me know what you think.. There are mirrored compacts and business card cases in the cutest boxes ever..and purse pads with back up paper..you know, so your bag doesn’t look like mine with 30 things written on everything from the back of receipts to envelopes to deposit slips and field trip consent forms.

We’ve already been designing for new release items for Inviting Company for January. We’ll have new designs on existing products, not to mention the release of ceramic beverage (who are we kidding…COFFEE) mugs. The packaging design was finished up a couple of weeks ago for these and I can’t wait to see how they turn out. We also have a couple tricks up our sleeves for Jan release