Happy Valentine's day or as I read earlier this morning on TBD - Generosity Day!! I had already planned to give the donation today from the first flock of birds to Gulf Restoration Network & IBRRC in the spirit of loving appreciation and then the post by TBD sweetened it!
Just made a donation of $1600 on behalf of BirdProject to GRN & IBRRC - thank you and many kisses to you BirdProject backers and supporters!!
Aaaaaand, while I was making the donation to IBRRC -'bird is the word' came on the radio, a colinkadink or what?!! How exciting and now, really for that Dixie!! Cheers and thank you : ]
Wow! What a trip to the P.O.! I originally tried to set up a pick up, as it was 60 packages! Since this was taking too long to arrange I went ahead and took them over in my beetle/pickup truck/sleigh - I did feel a liitle bit like Santa : ] FYI - if you need to ship A LOT of packages, the post office will let you borrow a cart, thank goodness - it took a good 15 trips or so from workroom to car.. haha, I was imagining how I would do this in a Brooklyn post office.. fighting the line, not so happy post office worker at the window, putting a package in one at a time through the bulletproof glass window opening, the line building behind me, haha - it would have been a little trickier.
Here in NOLA, it went much easier, I went in, listened to the chat in front of me while in line to ask if a cart was available, the woman behind the counter very generously got me a cart to borrow, I rolled it - loudly, the singing wheels and hollow plastic body echoing through the halls of the p.o. and the courtyard parking lot, causing everyone to look and see what was this woman doing with this big, orange cart? why does she have so many packages? why is she so loud? Haha, luckily I am not that easily embarrassed nor mind if people goggle : ]
Two lovely ladies divided the work and we got it done really pretty quickly! I am so excited to see pics/hear word of the birds' new nests and am thrilled to have gotten the generous backers on kickstarter their backing rewards. I was interviewed this week for an article on kickstarter locally and the reporter asked me what I would have done if Kickstarter didn't exist.. I thought, great question! & am I really thankful for it being there. The whole thing was a great learning experience and an exciting and truly fun way to raise money for your project. It makes it really personal and rewarding and it's also really hard to imagine it not being there. I guess that's part of an excellent idea or object if it fills a void so well with its validity. So, thank you kickstarter backers and thank you kickstarter!!
As you receive your birds, please share photos of them in their new nests if you don't mind. I've really enjoyed seeing the photos and stories shared thus far!
a whole she-bang ready to fly out the door!
the stack builds!!
birdcoach!
I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday! This post will need to play some catch up! December, Looking back at 2010, and Year Ahead -
December:
What a whirlwind! As the pieces came together it was a wonderful exercise of organizing the parts to become a whole ready to fly out into the world. Looking back on it, it's quite amazing that they came together right before the holidays! Coordinating ceramics [creating ceramic birds, firing, glazing, firing] transporting to emily for soap-making, packaging [did a packaging beak and tip of tail padding test on my birdie, wrapped a couple of times was ok], shipping [wow! a whole job in itself - i was a box scavenger, they were like gold, got them from whole foods, walgreens, neighbors, office depot, ha - developed eye scanners for small cardboard boxes], project blog posting took a backseat for a bit as I am a one woman show at this point..thus the lapse in posts. The ceramics proved to be the most time consuming part of the puzzle, the press molds work wonderfully but simply take time and moving into larger scale will need to switch to slipcasting molds pronto! Before the holidays, I shipped birdies and bags and washcloths and haiku postcards to more than half of the kickstarter backers [thank you amazing backers!!], a firm in Seoul, South Korea ordered some as gifts to their clients for New Year's, Reserve-A-Bird giftcards, and I brought a few to the eco design shop Spruce - I brought them 10 and they sold seven in the first evening, wow! Spruce also sold Reserve-A-Bird giftcards and started a waiting list as well! I hope this wonderful response to BirdProject continues, thank you all for supporting the project and for helping to raise awareness about the BP oil spill disaster.
Looking back at 2010:
Who knew? : ]Â As I quickly packed my bags to head to mom's for the holidays, having taken my last beetle full of packages, stuffed in like clowns in the old vw ads, to send off into the world from the post office, oh how I wish I could send them piggyback via carrier pigeon!.. I sat slightly hallucinating, ha! from being a birdbot for weeks and weeks, lack of rest and odd, quickly prepared meals - all gratifyingly so, not whining a bit, i loved this entire process - so I sat my beloved worktable [portable sawhorses & a piece of plywood, yes!] surrounded by BirdProject goods and in my new home of three months and thought... holy shit a lot has happened, it's like years packed into less than a half of a year, it has been so dense.
Looking back at the path behind me, and at the past few months - it's amazing what can happen when you have the time and energy to put behind something. I think I'd been looking for this Something for a while, I had grown disinterested in making things for the sole sake of making them, I thought too much about them sitting in the landfill afterwards. I was looking for something that was worthy of development, something that.. well, mattered, sorry for the company pun. When working on something no matter [really, again? : ] what it is, you pour your heart and soul and time into it and I wanted that Something to be something that I really cared about spending that precious time on and heartfelt energy into. When this idea came, I knew it was IT and it had to happen fast because of the urgency of the oil spill.
Looking back I can see the bits and parts of my life that have given me the experience to work on this project and that is a very tranquil moment to sit with. I have done a lot of different things and sometimes at the time they could have seemed random [not that there is anything wrong with that, i like it - at moments though you think to yourself, why am i doing this?]. I enjoyed being able to see in hindsight the different points in time, and experiences/skills gained that connected to form these birds and this project, in sending them back into the world, almost as a little stippling. To learn from the past to bring forward with you - I think the key is, follow your heart and your instinct and try! Also, I think, don't rush, take your time and find your speed to find it in the way most meaningful to you. Everyone has different speeds - listen to yours whether fast or slow and find your process or the thing that makes you go. And if you don't succeed right away, try again and don't try to be perfect - that is inhuman, besides the learning and the interest is really in the trying and the finding.
Year Ahead:
Wow, so now there's a whole calendar year ahead minus just a few days so far! I have a few lists of things to catch up on, things to occur in the near and far timelines, and new/current ideas to pursue & develop. I am really appreciative of all that has happened in the past few months and would like to thank everyone who has helped in this, I could not have done it without you, and I am so very grateful for your help and your collaboration! I am excited to continue and develop current collaborations and see where the birdies will fly! I am also excited to meet new people and ideas, find dreams to open up and form new relationships with wonderful people to make things happen. Wow, at the end of last year, someone introduced me as "This is Tippy, she makes things happen" I'd really like to live up to that statement, I greatly appreciated it and was thrilled to be introduced as such. So here we are, to a Happy twentyeleven, am looking forward to great things happening, and I am also really looking forward to making contributions to IBRRC and Gulf Restoration Network via your support of BirdProject, that will be the best!!
More coming soon!
We reached almost 6K on Kickstarter!! Thank you, danke schüne, merci beaucoup, mucho gracias!!!!!!!
What an amazing 30 days and I greatly appreciate your support BirdProject Backers!! So looking forward to sending the birdies and other BirdBacking gear out to you!! : ] Reaching the set goal of $2500 in 5 days was amazing enough and then to more than double it over the next 25 days is completely exciting. [This meant that we raised enough for the initial run's start up costs.]
I greatly appreciate your interest, support, and feedback throughout this process. Truly I am so glad that you find the value in this project and am thrilled to hear from many of you that you now feel that you are a part of it by backing, that makes me very happy. Thank you for being a part of it!!!
Check out the new, hot off the presses at Purple Monkey BirdProject tote bags! Eco Inks! Printed on recycled cotton totes!! You can fit an entire market in here.. or at least all of your market needs or a pug!
Woohoo! Other updates: many exciting things in the works that I can't tell you about yet, they are so exciting I just might pop! But, I will hold out until underway.. This weekend will be a birdie production weekend, thank you to Heather at Byrdie's [coffee & tea shop, gallery, & ceramics studio] we will be happily producing molds + ceramic birds en masse! Also, thank you to John Oles for getting us all straight with our new press molds. Hooray! Excited for these birds to fly the flock and out to you!
About 50 hours left on kickstarter! Thank you BirdProject Backers!!
I am elated and thrilled and tickled and EXCITED to have met this goal so quickly!! Thank you wonderful backers for your generosity and wonderful energy. So happy to have received such a wonderful response for the BirdProject! This speedy goal reaching is great to have time to raise further funds, the $2500 goal is half of the initial run cost, I decided to set the goal at half since is an all or nothing sort of deal on Kickstarter. THANK YOU BACKERS!!! Can't wait to send you your birdies + other goodies : ]
Can I tell you how much I love Kickstarter? I have been following their site for the past year & have seen so many amazing projects such as: Harald Geisler's 2011 Typography Calendar, Pinch - cool salt and pepper set, 26 hours left on that one!, the beautiful ice houses of Detroit by Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune,my intro to KS - Coming & Crying, and recently funded Pimento Cheese Please documentary on this Southern Delight by Nicole Lang and Christophile Konstas. Kickstarter is the NEA grant of our era - thank you brilliant starters of Kickstarters!
Below are some pics of recent ceramic moldmaking process + a delicious breakfast with my friend Chris who was travelling through at my favorite breakfast [i love it!] joint in the WORLD - Elizabeth's in the Bywater! Fried green tomatoes, taters, coffee, perfectly poached eggs, & a tasty biscuit.
a whole she-bang ready to fly out the door!
the stack builds!!
birdcoach!
making the soap mold.. before pouring silicon in. the bucket acts as a mother mold [not needing then to create a plaster mother mold] once sets, you pull the silicon mold out of the bucket, slice down the sides to get the clay bird out & voila!
first test w/ the fired ceramic bird inside shown here in his soapmaking environs [glycerin cubes in foreground]. unfortunately the first ceramic birds were too large, you could see them at the top ridge - so we had to remake our plaster molds for smaller ceramic birds that wouldn't show through the soaps. the soaps turned out beautifully though! was a real treat to see the final birds in soap form, plus they smell like heaven! emily is amazing!
I was completely craving a ny slice for weeks, while visiting emily and waiting for the test soaps to cure we went to emily's husband's recommendation spot for pizza [he is from new jersey] to nino's pizza in uptown, nino moved here from brooklyn 25 years ago & that crust is like heaven! yum!
re-creating the new molds w/ a smaller bird model.. you build up the first half w/ clay being careful around the edges of the bird to keep the detail & create the proper parting line without any undercuts..
pour the plaster on top, then use your newly created side 1 - lube it all up with petroleum [ironic i know] jelly so that the plaster doesn't stick to it self, then pour again for side 2, repeat! moldmaking is so tiring, i'm not sure what it is about it, but alison and i have done 2 days of moldmaking now & each one we are both suprisingly KNACKERED! we did make eight total..
REWARD! Alison's husband Rajko and my buddy Alex Podesta were both in a great show EMERGE at the Ogden Museum of Southern art [it was awesome! a great collection of work, I was impressed] so I went to represent [to borrow Meg's lingo] & then shared a beer and yummy fries w/ Alex & Mark afterwards, thanks for an awesome eve guys!!
building the flock! we have had some wonderful helpers - some of my Tulane amigas came in one day - thank you Tanvi and Ann! And Rajko and Thomasine each created Century Days where we cranked out 100!! Merci, merci, merci!!
TEDxTU was On Nov. 22 - I've been helping students from the Social Entrepreneurship department plan this for the past few months and it was truly a wonderful event, some amazing work going on here in New Orleans and I am thrilled and honored to have been a part of this!! Check out the inspiring speakers here!
On Thanksgiving I actually took the day off! I made ice cream for Thanksgiving din [maple syrup, ginger vanilla] caught up with my dear amiga Cécile in Italy and just had a lovely relaxing day, was nice to get up and not bolt out the door! : ] palm trees at thanksgiving was AWESOME! i missed the opening day at the races though - next year!
first batch bisque fired, so very exciting! and luckily any that split, simply split & did not explode!! please can this continue kiln gods? we are very grateful & will gladly do special dances!!
the flock continues to build.. : ]
Waiting for ceramacist on a rainy afternoon, I had a strong coffee and a cupcake, yum. Cake café in the Marigny, sooo tasty. Also, they don't have internet - at first slightly annoyed that I couldn't work, after a few minutes.. I welcomed the space and noticed how everyone in the café was actually talking to each other or if solo reading books, not obsessively checking in online as is par for the course in most places these days. Aaaah, thank you cake.
November in nola, the flowers are blooming!
Press molds by John Oles, faster than slipcasting in that there's less cleanup after the pressing & bases more consistent
Ceramic bird sizing tests, the ceramic birds shrink about 12% so these rough bird shapes were marked with their original heights and fired to give me a visual guage of that shrinkage, thank you Heather at Byrdie's [coffeeshop & ceramic studio in st. claude]
yes, i did have TWO cupcakes this week, this one w/ my friend Bob while he was in town at Butcher!
Yesterday evening I hosted a potluck dinner for Tulane's Net Impact group, about 18 Social Entrepreneurship students came over yesterday, bringing along a delicious & diverse smörgasbord with them! We had homemade egg rolls, indian delights- what was that dessert called Tasneem?, fried rice, 2 kinds of mac n cheese, mashed potaters, roast chicken, spicy rice, apple & cheese plate, cookies...anyhow, it was all delicious and they were a real delight to have over. Also have a couple of ladies interested in interning next semester for MATTER! thank you ladies : ] & I look forward to the next one.
