Last weekend, a friend prompted our first visit to the Georgetown Drive-In, a spot that has been on my list of places to check out for a few years. I knew it was in Southern Indiana, and I knew they collaborated with my beloved Caufield’s Novelty—Louisville’s century-old independent costume store—every year, screening blocks of horror movies leading up to Halloween. What I didn’t know was that the owner is a fan of old signs.

Bill Powell was 4 years old when his family bought Georgetown Drive-In, and he’s been operating and maintaining the projectors since he was about 7. Even though the double-feature screening of Insidious 6 and Hokum was definitely not going to be printed on 35mm, Bill played some vintage intermission film between screenings.

The film projections were certainly charming, but that’s just one piece of the analog magic. When you pull into Georgetown Drive-In, you are greeted by two animated neon signs: a classic car with spinning wheels, and the letters from an old decommissioned theater in Louisville that slowly illuminate to read, “C-I-N-E-M-A”! The snack shack beckons you with the warm hum of red neon trim and some charmingly aged privilege signs. By the way, that’s the name for those old Coca-cola or Old Style illuminated signs you see still kicking around. The brand featured would supply a free sign to your bar or dairy dip as long as their logo was prominently advertised too.

Needless to say I was in heaven, and my poor little iPhone 13 mini was smoking as I tried my best to capture the neon glow in low light mode. My buddy Ryan noted my glee, to which I announced, “Southern Indiana is full of sign museums and nobody knows it!”

Schimpff’s Confectionery

And that’s because I had just been yelling at him hours earlier for not telling me that the old school candy shop across the street from his house had so many insane gold leaf signs inside!!!

Julian and I had gone across the river a few months back to secure enough Jelly Belly jellybeans to properly celebrate his 40th birthday. You see, Julian is a certified Jelly Belly freak, it’s his absolute favorite snack. If Jelly Belly is reading this and wants to sponsor him, please reach out! When we walked into Schimpff’s, our eyes slowly started registering the amount of advertising ephemera in the space—from a handpainted wooden candy cart, to old candy box lithographs in frames with the contents letterpressed into the design, and eventually to the glue-chipped glass with gold leaf and abalone shell inlays.

An older man waved me down after watching us run around with our mouths open for 20 minutes, and introduced himself as Warren Schimpff. The recently-retired confectioner began telling us about his friend David Butler (a legendary gilder who I don’t know personally) who had helped him source and restore many of the signs in the building. We are pretty sure there are some original Rawson & Evan’s convex glass signs in the collection, but I didn’t take photos of those. I was overwhelmed!

Warren said he’d have to confirm the provenance of those signs with his friend Todd, from the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, and had I ever been??? Warren, you silly goose…of COURSE I’ve been to the American Sign Museum!

The American Sign Museum

My first time at ASM was for the 40th Annual Letterheads Meetup in 2015. That’s the first time I had been in the same room as many of the sign painters that are now dear friends and also some who have sent me threatening texts and emails (I’ll never tell!). The last time I was there was last summer, for the 50th meetup. ASM is visually overwhelming, like someone took Fremont Street in Las Vegas and brought it all under one roof. Once you get your sea legs, there are so many sweet vignettes and treasures to behold, including displays of kits and equipment from sign painters who have passed.

A very nerdy thing is that I proposed to my partner here, in the faux Main Street area of the museum in 2021. If you’re in Cincinnati, ASM should not be missed. Not only is it a great spot to get out of the heat or cold and bask in the red glow of neon, it’s also an institution that works very hard to preserve history and signage when signs are slated for demolition, or when building owners can’t afford the maintenance of their old signs.

Now, back to a place similar to Schimpff’s, except I haven’t been there yet: Ernie’s Tavern in Bloomfield, KY.

Ernie’s Tavern (To Be Visited)

I heard about Ernie’s first from my partner Julian, who ended up there by chance on a long motorcycle ride with buddies. He sent me some mind-blowing photos and I immediately bookmarked it as a spot that I needed to go check out….and then I forgot as quickly. A few months ago, another sign painter in Louisville hit up the group chat when he stopped in with family.

Ernie’s slogan is “Revisit the Good Ole Days” which is normally a warning when advertising a place in the South. I will report back when I finally make the trip out to see if it passes the vibe check, which I hope it does! The Ernie’s compound consists of a bar and restaurant, venue, soda fountain, and bowling alley. Each area is packed with retro furniture and signage as well as arcade games and memorabilia.

“Neon Lou” - a work in progress

Something that appeared to me as I began exploring our current hometown of Louisville, KY was the amount of neon signage. In Chicago, it’s really relegated to downtown and a few neon shops on major strips like Western Ave. Nashville, similarly, has a bunch on broadway and a few liquor stores that line the arteries leading out of downtown. Louisville is so much smaller than both towns, and neon signs continue to pop up as I explore more parts of town. I’ve been collecting these in a Google map, so if you spot a good one while you’re out please send me the coordinates! Take the sign museum on the road: feel free to hop on a motorcycle with your sweetie on a warm summer night to enjoy these signs. Here’s a personal favorite.

Lastly, I’m working on a little reliquary in my personal studio. With only 235ft² available to me and inspired by the mini letterpress museum my friend Brad built for his studio, I have decided to keep it to vintage signs I can hang up, and things that can fit in a display cabinet. Here’s a little sneak peek. I have so many sign zines!

If you’re ever in Louisville, let me know and I’ll show you my mini museum!

1. Being able to go to the pool anytime I want now that we have access to one. Although we’d prefer natural water, you’d be hard pressed to find a clean swimming hole that’s within 30 minutes of the city. We have been hanging out a lot at the American Turners (German word for “gymnastics”) club and finally became members this summer. I remember going to an estate sale at an American Turners lodge in Pilsen and seeing all of the early-1900s pommel horses and metal globe dumbbells, but I didn’t really know what that was until I saw the name repeated here. Our Turners club specializes in circus training, so most of the indoor facilities are dedicated to aerial acrobatics but there’s also a vintage, robins egg blue bowling alley AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: a pool!

   

2. When Julian told me I needed to body double with him and work outside, even though it was so hot and I didn’t feel up for it. Ended up gardening for hours, until my dress was completely drenched in soak and my fingertips hurt (even with leather gardening gloves on!).

3. Following up on #2: drinking an impossibly cold beer after doing hours of outdoor work.

4. A reunion with some long lost biological family.

5. Wrapping up a big, hot, sweaty mural project and then the best part: getting paid. I burn through books and podcasts while I paint, so please send me your audio book or podcast recommendations.

   

6. Not fainting during my last two iron infusions and prioritizing parts of my health care that I’ve been avoiding. I’m squeamish with IVs and bloodwork. I faint anytime I get blood drawn unless I’m laying down with my feet elevated.

7. Hiking in JMF and catching an insane sunset that lasted the entire drive home.

8. Painting some smaller things for friends.

9. Catching Wayne White’s show Revenge of the Knoxville Girl at the Knoxville Museum of Art, and coming back the second day for a gallery talk with the man himself.

10. Detouring on our way home from Knoxville to swim at the Devil’s Racetrack, hanging out long enough to watch a rainstorm roll in.

11. A few coffee dates and studio visits with friends. I am very grateful for my career but I MISS SHARED STUDIO SPACE and sometimes I even miss coworkers. I want to prioritize making this a regular occurrence.

12. Catching Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t at my backyard bar. Louisville showed up, and the hosts were really shocked that a 2.5 hour slideshow about native plants would pack out the venue.

    

13. Receiving the most perfect neon sign gift from Kellyroll Golden!!!

    

14. Getting to see a local showing of work from longtime favorites Sage and Bryn Perrott at Friend of Mine.

15. Seeing Maddie’s Secret, which felt like a contemporary Almodovar film. This has sent me down a rabbit hole watching movies that I felt like John Early was trying to emulate with this film. I can’t stop saying “woman-owned, ethically-sourced chili crisp?!?”

16. The Louisville Tool Library turned 4 on July 9th, and we had a volunteer party at Locals on the 19th to celebrate.

    

17. Talking about the significance of dreams with Dana and Ash on a balmy balcony. If you’ve had any interesting dreams lately and would like to see them incorporated into a puppet show, please send your anonymous dream digests to the River of Dreams hotline!

18. Coffee on my porch with Jenna and Ryan, constantly scooting around to stay out of the sun but toughing it out because we have a lot to say.

19. Doing a little bit of design work and feeling like I haven’t totally forgotten how.

    

20. A clean bill of health for my geriatric cat (Rosemary’s baby is 15!!). She always sits with her front arms like this.

21. A Friday night glued to my friend Ryan, where we go to the pool, then a tiki bar where I accidentally eat a meat hot dog, then a puppet slam at a black box theater with a surprise friend in the show, then karaoke with more buds at my favorite townie spot. I parked my car in a scary spot and nothing happened.

    

22. Overhearing the Dinosaur Jr. show under a tree in the park next door with Sean and Claire.

23. Walking in the Dainty Parade with Paul, Katherine and Ellen as reps for the tool library. We brought our magnet sweepers so we could pick up nails in the road while we walked and there were A LOT.

24. Riding my bike to Dana’s show at Couch Potato, then to a group show at Foko that I and a lot of friends are in. A steady stream of people that I love and want to talk to making their way through the room, and it all felt very easy and chill.

25. The way Meghan hung my work for that group really made me feel special.

26. Being nosey with Ash and Teresa at Katie and Carly’s house while they are gone.

27. Finding out Julian won an endurance motocross race—the second one he’s ever done. It’s been really amazing to watch him throw himself into a new hobby and to see him get external validation for his skills feels incredible. Especially since his 40th birthday was last month!

28. Finishing a grueling DIY project at home. If you’ve ever lived in a rental property, you’ve encountered repairs that made you wonder if there were any good people left in the world. Now that I own a home I can say: actually “fixing” something means first completely replacing about 10 other things and repairing 15 others. I am trying to master the art of “good enough” with painter’s caulk and a dream.

29. Working on switching my website back to Cargo from Squarespace, and noticing so many things I’ve left off of my CV and website for so long—which would normally overwhelm me, but currently is motivating me.

30. Morning bike rides before it gets too hot, and evening bike rides to catch a breeze in the night air.

31. Getting an invitation for a solo show this winter in Tennessee from an artist friend who now runs her own gallery and studio.

That’s all for now! I hope this newsletter finds you with at least your feet in some cool, clean water.

Shelby

Good news is that I’ve been painting a lot in the intervening months since my last dispatch. I figure some folks here have to be interested in what I’ve been making, and the whole point of starting this was to a) get better at writing and b) share work with more intention. So, why don’t you just sit back and let me tell you about this sign commission 10 years in the making.

Shared Infatuation

Dud Lawson and I met through the design/printmaking community in Chicago, where we eventually became studio mates at Chicago Art Department. A highlight of that time was when Dud and Depression Press co-pilot Kent made a bunch of really fun letter-pressed signs for mile 20 of the Chicago marathon. We found out early that a) we lived across the street from each other and b) we were both obsessed with a sign.

The Sign That This Whole Dang Thing Is About hung on a check cashing building where we spent so much time sitting on the bus in traffic, and we have both made art inspired by it. The irony of the sign’s location and message (“Honesty is Still in Style” on the side of a business that takes a portion of people’s paycheck to capitalize on their need for immediate funds access) was not lost on either of us. The anachronistic beauty and….very interesting layout choice tugged at our hearts! In 2016, the check cashing business closed and the sign was removed.

I’m thrilled that Dud asked me to recreate the sign true to its original form with all of the wonkiness and charm (except he wouldn’t let me put the MACH tag on there). There’s nothing like a hyper-specific shared interest among long-distance friends :)

In April, we entered it into Typeforce 14 (no link ‘cause they stink!), a lettering-focused exhibition in Chicago, and while we were not accepted I feel like Dud’s words about this sign deserve to be read here:

Hello, Typeforce 14

I loved my friend Smellbyʼs work before I even met her.

When I saw a piece of hers in a group show way back at the tail end of the Obama administration, it was clear I needed to meet whoever was responsible immediately. It was a beautifully stitched hanging tapestry with masterfully hand-painted lettering of a peculiar phrase that had dominated my subconscious ever since I had moved to Chicago about eight years earlier.

Thereʼs no way anyone would ever land on that incredibly peculiar combination words without making exactly one incredibly specific reference: a semi-competently painted wooden sign that used to be nailed to the side of a tiny one-story building on the near west side of Chicago. I stared at it every weekday for years while waiting for the 65 bus downtown.

There was no context to who put it there, who it was for or, why they would choose to write it like that, but those five words always stuck with me. And apparently they had stuck with whoever took the time to immortalize its message on silk, too.

When the Check Cashing place first went up for sale, my immediate thought was what would happen to the sign. I talked endless about trying to buy it from whoever owned the building, even after it was semi-incompetently tagged in the bottom corner — I hope youʼre doing well, MACH. But I never did. And when the lot was eventually sold and the sign was inevitably taken down, I was surprisingly devastated.

Seeing those same 21 characters on the walls of what was still the Co-Prosperity Sphere at the time was oddly validating. It meant there were strangers out there who were just as affected by it.

We were who it was for. It was for us. And one of us could paint/sew.

Years later, after Shelby and I had started sharing studio space, a New York Times contributor writing a “Letter of Recommendation” Op-ed independently contacted us both to ask if we knew anything about the sign. Presumably because we were some of the only people to ever post anything using the hashtag of the sign’s message. Neither of us had any info, but it was still a nice piece.

Earlier this year, out of pure coincidence, I commissioned Shelby to make a semi-faithful recreation of that sign, endearingly wonky lettering and all, for me to hang outside of my home. Because as they always say, “Be the Check Cashing place you want to see in the world.”

When I learned that Typeforce 14 was happening this year and Typeforce 7 just-so-happened where I was first introduced to her (work), I suggested to Shelby that we submit this commission to be part of it.

She agreed if I would write the submission.

And honestly Iʼm glad she asked.

#HonestyIsStillInStyle - your pal Dud Lawson

“Shared Infatuation”

Shelby Rodeffer & Dud Lawson
Hand-painted wooden sign, 36x30” 2026

xoxo,

Shelby

In order to get the funds to MIBFC without hundreds of dollars lost to processing fees, I had to get a travelers check from my bank, and had to put the check in the mail, and then had to wait for their team of volunteers to check their PO Box…no tidy instagram post with the receipt, because it’s been a saga. But every dollar is important, especially because this is a revolving bond fund. This means that the money we donated will be used to help bond people out, and when their immigration cases wrap up, MIBFC gets that money back from ICE (plus interest!) and will use it to pay another person’s bond.

Mounding the dirt, planting my seeds, wetting the earth

For people who make things (or maybe all people?) there is a necessary period of consumption, followed by a necessary period of creation. I can’t continue to create when I haven’t spent enough time absorbing things, and when I take in too much without turning it into art, I have trouble thinking clearly. It’s the equivalent of stocking up seeds all winter and not planting them. Eventually, you end up with a pantry full of moldy pumpkin and tomato seeds. I’ve been in a heavy idea-seed-starting period this winter, and I’m finally feeling the payoff of that work in my sketches and in the ideas that swim in my brain before I fall asleep at night. Here are some things that are high on my inspiration list lately:

Motto book; being a catalogue of epigrams by Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Hubbard was an American writer and philosopher who became famous for founding the Roycroft Center—a producer of mission style and arts and crafts goods and prints—in Aurora, New York. He considered himself and Anarchist and Socialist (there’s debate but since he was a white guy in the 1800s we can assume he would fall short of modern Socialist ideals). He produced a political newspaper called the Philistine and printed it on butcher paper “because there’s meat inside.”

Convicted of printing “objectionable” or “obscene” matter in violation of the postal codes in 1913, he sought and received clemency from President Wilson (notably this was special treatment, as 75% of other Americans petitioning for clemency on political grounds received no pardon) and immediately fled to Ireland with his wife. They both died when their ship, the RMS Lusitania, was torpedoed by Germans off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

During his time at the helm of the Roycrofters, he would produce illustrated quotes—some were printed notecard-sized and slipped into books he sold while others were printed as ready-to-frame broadsides. All feature Arts & Crafts style lettering and frames that I adore. The quotes themselves are sometimes cliche, often corny, but isn’t pithy wisdom often seen that way?

I was able to find several of the Roycroft books on Archive.org (thank you to this specific corner of the internet, to which I owe so much of my knowledge!) and I recommend hitting a cute little right-click on one of the images that speaks to you so you can download a hi-res scan of it. Maybe print it off and put it somewhere so that it can inspire someone else, or fold it up and mail it to a friend with an update from you.

Inspired by these mottos, I drew my own, which is available to be downloaded for free here. I’ve included color-separated files for any printmakers who might be following along. Feel free to distribute this print, but selling it or removing my signature is not allowed. If you want to leave me a $5 tip for the print file, I'm on Venmo here.

Download for personal use only

Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabet by Letterform Archive

Letterform Archive - $60

This book is a jewel box from the inside out. The cover, the plates, the historic photographs all sing the virtues of the decorative alphabet. I especially appreciated the opening essay from Morgan Côme, a sign painter with an origin story similar to mine who is so passionate about preservation and honoring the French style of painting. Julian got me this for my birthday and I haven’t been able to shelve it yet. In my own little ode to the alphabets in this book, I made a small sign for our basement bar featuring this bowlegged alphabet:

Victorian love tokens

I have been collecting kinetic charms after sharing a mutual affinity for them with my favorite person Jenna Blazevich! Jenna’s had an impressive charm necklace for a while, and I finally got to the point where I had enough to start my own (shoutout to Martha at Have A Cow Vintage for being a charm dealer to me and Jenna) and had the talented folks at Lackadazee Jewelry polish all of the charms and attach them to a vintage chain (I also got the toaster charm from them!). I oscillate between periods of being a big jewelry-wearer and phases of having no adornments other than the ones in my nose. Right now, I am really enjoying having a little extra sparkle and relish the ritual of adding and removing jewelry every day (at other times I find this annoying and that’s how the cycle goes!). My charm-hounding on eBay lead me to discover Victorian love tokens.

Often carved on silver dimes (1800s), silver coins from other countries, or other exonumia, Victorian love tokens seem to have been a quick and cheap souvenir of the time. Silver coins could be easily smoothed out after minting and engraved on-site. The intricacy varies, with some love tokens simply having initials or a date carved on them and others containing patterned monograms or scenes. This reminds me of a time when Julian and I had been dating for maybe a year or two. He made me a ring out of a silver quarter (1950s and before) by drilling out the center and then hammering the outer ring into a band. I….think I may have lost this ring (did I mention I’m also really bad about misplacing jewelry??) but I remember how cool it was to look at the inside of the ring and see the scalloped edges of the quarter still showing. That ring, like these Victorian love tokens, shows that materials don’t need to be precious and in fact plucking something out of the everyday and adding specific and sentimental meaning to it can be so very sweet.

Okay, that’s enough yapping from me. Thank you for reading if you made it this far! If you feel like sharing something that’s been inspiring you this month, please do. I leave you with this photo plate of a sign at the Roycroft center:

Xoxo,

Shelby

ANYWAY, I have been wanting to make less text-based work for a while. My banners are inspired by the world of religious and Masonic regalia, as well as the legacy of trade union banners and the labor movement, all of which are fertile ground for imagery. I have zero training in pictorial painting, but when has that stopped anyone?

I’m drawn to American Lodge imagery because of its ominous, arcane essence. After America was formed, Freemasonry stepped in to offer a source of visual imagery for early colonial settlers to project the ideals of their newly founded country (ignoring the previous history of the land, except they loved to dress like native people for their little ceremonies). The symbolism is all pretty intense and metal, and inside these secret societies they carried more meaning related often to altruism, benevolence and loyalty. A skull may feel macabre, but the intent of the image was to remind the fraternity that only the good or evil you do in your lifetime will survive you. In the 1800s, about 1 in 5 white men were in at least one Masonic fraternity.

In order to be a Freemason, you had to be (again) a white man and you had to come from decent financial standing. This was another angle that I liked to consider in my work: Masonic regalia banners would have been seen by so few people, but I can make banners for everyone, especially the people that would have been left out of these secret societies.

Trade union banners stand in stark contrast to fraternal lodge banners, as a working art form for the working class. Trade union banners can depict leaders of labor movements, or sometimes a dark preview of what is at stake. However, my favorite banners offer scenes of a better tomorrow.

Socialism!!! Are you kidding me with this thing?

“Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.”

These banners were made in studios and ranged in quality and cost. Traditionally they were painted, but embroidered banners also exist. Painted banners—no matter how expensive and artfully made—are incredibly fragile and when they are used outdoors for labor protests they fall apart. The oldest trade union banner in existence is the Tin Plate Workers Society banner from 1821, which is in the banner collection at the People’s History Museum.

When I approached making pictorial banners for my own artistic expression, I knew there were certain motifs I wanted to borrow from. In both trade union and Masonic banners, I feel like clouds are the secret sauce. There’s never an average-looking sky depicted. I also chose to use some of the arcane scenic cues from Masonic regalia: tents, checkered floors, columns. To call back to trade union banners, I depicted the average person (me, but as a toad?) enjoying their time of leisure in various ways. I also had to include someone lamenting over their phone screen, which has been a theme of mine for a while and something that has become unfortunately universal in recent years.

Working Artist toad is seen drawing languidly on a checkered platform with three columns in the background. WA was told that they could have an exciting career in commercial arts, but ignored the footnote: from now on, everything you make will be subject to commodification, and your output as an artist will directly impact your self-worth.

We are in a desert oasis, but we still have to kill time, right? Screen Time Toad checks their feed while they wait for their food to finish microwaving, and suddenly 45 minutes have gone by. The underside of their face has blue light burns from overexposure, and it’s probably not just the lack of food that is making their stomach hurt.

Burnout Toad is on the verge of complete nihilism, feeling like nothing they do matters and that they can’t change anything. Not wanting to risk appearing aloof about the world’s big problems, BT seeks refuge at a secluded swing. In this small act of joy, BT remembers that even with extreme suffering everywhere, beautiful things can happen and life continues regardless. The promise is made to seek out moments of happiness to counteract the Weltschmerz.

I hope in the face of everything bad, you can find something good. After reaching out to friends who had done raffles before, as well as friends working with immigrants in Louisville, I decided to raffle off a banner on instagram to benefit Midwest Immigration Bond Fund. If you have wanted a banner and aren’t particular about the design, you could win this one for only $10!

Take me to the Banner Raffle

Thanks again for reading! Look out for yourself and each other.

Shelby

I took a minute to go through my photos and my slingshot journal and make notes about the year. (Are you wanting to take a minute to reflect? This is a great prompt that will take you an hour or less) Here are the big takeaways:

• This has been the hardest year for me financially since leaving steady employment. I have spent a lot of time this year contemplating if it’s time for me to pivot into a more sustainable career. It would be nice to get paid twice a month with benefits! What am I going to do when I get older and my eyes are worse and I can’t crouch into weird positions to paint? Ultimately I feel unqualified to do anything else, but I think in 2026 I will open my mind to other paths.

  I archived all of my banner posts on IG earlier this year, as a response to AI training on meta platforms. Unfortunately that directly correlated with a sharp drop in commissions. I put the posts back up, but haven’t shared any banners or work from my solo show on there. I struggle to bring myself to do it. Artists, what are your feelings about self-promoting in this tech era?

• I pushed myself a lot this year to do things I’m not good at. Julian and I joined a recreational volleyball league, which is a big deal to me as a Sims kid with sporty parents who is scared of the ball. I’m still scared of it, but I’m doing it. This summer I also joined some friends in an occasional bluegrass ensemble so that I would practice accordion more. I have always wanted to be musical but I lack all necessary talent and determination to become so. In both of these ventures, I am the least talented/skilled person who shows up, but I am showing up and it feels good.

• There were some pretty notable shifts with friendships this year, including some severances and even some shiny new friends. There were many moments this year where I felt umoored in my relationships. I think the root of this is that I spread myself pretty thin socially. I like having a lot of buds who do different stuff! This year I might try to spend more time working on projects (back to money woes) and less time at the townie bar. Julian continues to be my lighthouse, a safe place to return when I’m wondering if I’m the most annoying person in the world.

  

• All in all this year I felt pretty….unmotivated? Not driven? I kind of just let the year pull me along. I feel most like myself when I’m altering my environment (gardening, tinkering on my house, making new work) and leaning into those activities more next year might help me be more proactive.

Yikes! Anyway, those are the cold hard facts about my year.

I also wanted to take a moment and thank folks for reading this silly rag. It’s been really helpful to work on the newsletter as a practice in organizing my thoughts and archiving the year. If you bought any art—a sign, a poster, a sticker—THANK YOU. Every cent has enabled me to exist, to show up for others, and to continue to believe in the idea of being an artist.

Shelby

Ps: I haven’t started on the gourds yet!

I wonder if anyone else relates to this: If I have two days off during the week2 I will spend that time watching shows, looking at piles of things I need to organize and dust bunnies and dirty dishes that I have no motivation to tackle. If I have two hours before I have to leave town for work, I will organize my email inbox, fold all of my laundry and reset the kitchen, clean up the front garden, and maybe repaint the hallway. If I am working ten days in a row onsite with only enough time to feed myself and watch one episode of a show before bed, I will have two new ideas for paintings that I want to make with supplies I have been saving up in my studio, and I will prep those supplies with the free ten minutes I have tomorrow.

For my specific wiring, having ample time makes the executive part of my brain turn off, but having a narrow window of free time puts it into overdrive.

What am I doing with this discovery: nothing yet! I might need a professional to help me implement tools to allow more narrow time blocks, but if y’all have any recommendations for ways you trick your brain into managing time, maybe you can let me know in the comments or in an email. I promise to share with the class!

Some fun things from this month:

What I want to be accountable for this winter: decorating these gourds!

I grew and dried these gourds TWO YEARS AGO, brought them to my studio with the intent to paint them and never did. I brought them home to see if that would help and I think the guilt of seeing them every day has finally brought me to the point of getting started on them. I want to make them look like actual houses or little taverns, and I reached out to my buddy Devin Drake — miniaturist to the stars! — to get some tips to get me started. Hopefully I will have an update for you next month.

New prints online

Brad Vetter made another run of my AWIP posters in two new colorways. This round, I want to donate 10% from each sale to La Casita Center here in Louisville. If you’re inside the Watterson in Louisville and want to buy one, please choose the local delivery option and I will drop a poster off to you!

buy a print

PCB is doing a reprint of Always Carry A Book tees and sweatshirts. The preorder is live!

That’s a wrap for now. Be good to each other!

xoxo -s

I’ve returned from the land of pfand with a virus and a backlog of work to do, but I can say that Germany and Austria have been added to the list of Places I’d Like To Move Forever, due to the beautiful baroque churches and the recycling and mountains and trolleys.

Some of my favorite things quickly:

• Trick fountains at Schloss Hellbrunn in Salzburg, Austria. The fountains range from horny little booty-wetting fountains to water-powered automatons to a water-powered bird call grotto.

• Asamkirch in Munich: PEAK baroque interiors built by two brothers who are buried below it.

• Friedrichsbad 19th century baths (next to Roman bath ruins) in Baden Baden, Germany. I love to sauna, and this was one of the most beautiful bathhouses I’ve ever been to.

Back home in the US, I am trying to get myself in the mood for Gay Christmas. It’s still 90F here which is really impeding the vibes. I have some very strong Halloween traditions that I would like to share with you to get us all in the mood for thin veils, rotting leaves, and longer nights.

Halloween Playlists

Julian and I have been working on this Halloween playlist for a few years. Unfortunately it lives on Spotify but you should still take a look at the track list. Julian’s done a good job of including songs that aren’t necessarily Halloween-themed but sound like they should be (like Really Doe by Danny Brown) and very cheeky vintage stuff like Igor’s Party by Tony and The Monstrosities.

Everyone has their own flavor of Halloween movies and shows they like to watch. Mine aim in the nostalgic direction and are as follows:

• I was so freaked out by the headless horseman in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad that I still get a little bit of that feeling watching this 1949 cartoon feature today.

• Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a great mood match to Over the Garden Wall, which I’m assuming everyone already knows about but just in case it’s been a while or you haven’t’ seen it:

• Creepshow 1982: The Most Fun You’ll Ever Have Being Scared! This is a great, campy anthology. I especially love the story where Stephen King plays a farmer who discovers a meteorite that turns everything into swampy plants.

• Lastly, I am not me if I am not recommending Ernest Scared Stupid, filmed in East Nashville’s Five Points and incredibly nostalgic to me. Eartha Kitt is amazing as Old Lady Hackmore, the slime/boogers are visceral, and I still can’t help but say “miiiaaack?!” Gotta get me a denim vest, a little terrier like Rimshot, and some authentic Bulgarian miak. You can watch this whole thing on YouTube for free with ads if you don’t already own it on VHS.

I’ll leave you with this video of Julian’s smokin-hot Jim Varney costume from two Halloween’s ago:

1. Elderberry Wine by Wednesday

2. Reading paperback books. I just scored a copy of Hillbilly Women by Kathy Kahn and it’s the perfect size to throw in your back pocket while you walk to the coffee shop.

   

3. Butterfly migration season! It’s almost boring how many monarchs and swallowtails are in our garden this time of year, just constant traffic. It makes me feel really validated in how much time we have spent working in the yard.

4. Frames by Sight Study (Gabe Schneider) who has a substack if you’d like to read more about his work!

5. Frog Juice Kombucha. I have loved this kombucha for years, since I was introduced to it while painting a kombucha taproom in Chicago. It’s made in Knoxville, Tennessee and all of the flavors are sublime. I could really go for one right now! Julian’s parents sometimes mail it to me.

6. Getting a new bike from Nick—a Surly Crosscheck—in exchange for painting a frog in his kitchen. I haven’t had a bike with gears or gravel in about 14 years and I am finding myself going on 15-minute sprints around the neighborhood when I want to instead of mainly biking for commute as I have done. We are switching out a bunch of the components, and this is the goal.

7. Being in the freaking creek!

   

8. I joined a volleyball team back in January because Nick is very convincing and also obsessed with clubs. Julian and I pulled up to the first game in the full realization that neither of us knew how to play! Now we have just started our 4th season?league? of volleyball and it’s something I really look forward to every Monday. Our team is called Nippleodeon.

9. Wombo: the new album, seeing them live, having multiple text threads with friends in other cities about this cool band from Louisville.

10. Pawpaw time! We are still early in the season, but we’ve had our first fruit of the season and even got to enjoy a limited edition Ale-8 One pawpaw-flavored soda (on my new bike)!

11. Cracker Barrel rebrand discourse. And I thought I didn’t care about graphic design anymore! What a delicious time to have aesthetic opinions and no feelings about the success or demise of that chain.

12. Frames and drawings by Alicia Adamerovich! These are older works by her circa 2020, but they are new to me and I love the pairings.

13. Painting some ornaments on Jesse’s door, him making me a frittata for breakfast and showing me around his garden.

14. State fair with Julian! We were unsuccessful in our quest for veggie corn dogs, but Julian still had as much despicable fair food as he could handle and we got to see the moldy baked goods.

15. Having four generations of my family over at my tiny little crummy house for pizza because I am most centrally-located, and accidentally matching clothes with a four-month-old.

16. Making this banner, only taking greasy-lens pics of it before mailing it to a show, never learning from my past mistakes.

    

17. Illustrations with frames by Maddie Fischer. I didn’t mean to have a theme here but I guess I am in my frame-admiration era.

18. Showing new people around Louisville and introducing them to the skeletons at St. Martin of Tours (my favorite parlor trick when folks visit!) and then hearing from that friend that they took someone to see the skellys!

19. A welcome 80F week in August, which feels like taking a beta-blocker.

20. The King of the Hill reboot is actually really, really good. There’s a bumpy first 15 minutes but Mike Judge really knows how to make a show!

LOVE YA!

I grew up in a very rural area 25 miles north of Nashville, with a cute, young 90’s mom who smoked delicate capri cigarettes while we drove around in her turquoise Kia listening to country music. When mom would drive us to Granny’s house, we’d pass a water tower and start singing John Deere Green by Joe Diffie, by the ending of which we’d be pulling into her driveway. My Granny wore out Dolly’s bluegrass album Little Sparrow in her kitchen. You bet your ass I had season passes to Opryland.

Like some kids, I went through a long phase of shirking the culture of my small Southern town. I started saying pinch instead of peench; I went to all-ages hardcore shows. I moved to Nashville at 18 to pursue an exciting Career in the Commercial Arts. When I finally left Tennessee for Chicago, I thought I was making my inevitable move from Country Mouse for a melting-pot city of grit and industry where I would flourish and never look back. Instead, I was homesick for warm weather and warm people. This is how I boomeranged back to being a country music fan.

The aesthetic of country music is having a renaissance with alt country acts going mainstream, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga making country-inspired pop albums, the Barbie-Movie-Pink-Pony-Club summer aesthetic of 2024, and every bar now looking like an old V.A. Hall with a $14 spaghet on the menu. But where’s the good ol’ country music, I ask??

In 2023, I followed an instagram flyer to the Whirling Tiger and found a weekly country music show called Honky Talkin’. Hosted by Tyler Lance Walker Gill, Honky Talkin’ is equal parts talk show/variety show/listening room with banter about current events, interviews, local ad breaks, and lots of sound effects. In full-circle kismet, there’s a signed photo of Joe Diffie on Tyler’s desk. The show is completely free, but Tyler walks through the audience in a “TIP THE BAND” hat to collect money for the performers.

Some shows would have psychobilly guitar players, some would be very mild Bluebird Cafe songwriter nights. With a free, weekly show you will undoubtedly run the gamut of guest talent and will stretch the limits of the country/americana genre, but the consistent and best part of the show is the “host with the most names,” TLWG. I loved what he was doing, and wanted to find a way to plug in, so I started working on some drawings in my downtime.

Keep in mind, no one was asking for any of this. I just couldn’t believe that an idea this good existed and seemingly no one knew about it.

There were a few weeks where I was one of four people in the room (the other three being Tyler’s wife and the two musical acts), but the show now has a pretty consistent following. It’s very hard to show up over and over again to make community happen, but thankfully Tyler is immune to shame and has kept the show going for over 2 years now. Before my solo show this year, TLWG invited me to be the first non-musical guest for the show’s new format. During our interview (at the 1:13:00 minute mark), he promoted me to the official art director of Honky Talkin’ and gave me a blank drumhead to paint for the house band kit—literally my dream!!!!!

We’ve begun a slow rollout of merch for Honky Talkin’ including these “WHIRL’D TOUR” shirts which list all 52 show locations on the back. You can support the show & the Louisville country music scene by buying one here!

HONKY TONK WHIRL’D TOUR SHIRTS

Shelby, WHY did you make me read about all of this work you’ve done for free for a show I have probably never been to?? Because, dear reader, Honky Talkin’ has provided a fun outlet for me to make the kind of work that I’m not paid to do, and that work is supporting a community and art that I really love, and I just think maybe this is a positive little story to tell while the rest of the world burns around us? Like, don’t work for free unless it’s really about the friends you make along the way!

I hope this weekend, you listen to a little Roger Miller or Loretta Lynn and have a good time. Thank you TLWG for all of the work that you do, and thank you to everyone who has gone to a live, local show in your town this year. May we continue!

Honky Talkin’ instagram • Honky Talkin’ YouTube • Honky Talkin’ TikTok

I just got back from Letterheads 50, we are in the heat bubble, I finally have poster tubes and today I am giving my newsletter friends early access to shop frog prints before I release them to the instagram jackals.

Use the code EMAILCLUB to access my store!

frog prints

This batch was printed on navy and yellow paper. You have the option to purchase the poster at full bleed without the bottom being trimmed so it’s a true 18x24” rectangle, or cut to shape so it hangs like the fabric banner that inspired the print. That selection will appear once you add a poster to your cart.

I’m also shipping via UPS now instead of USPS to guarantee tracking of your posters.

If you don’t care about my silly frog posters, or have already purchased one, thank you for sticking around!

TL;DR--just take me to the prints!

I was so happy with the solo show I had at Friend of Mine gallery this February! Brad and Adrienne have always been great community anchors and when they approached me to be the first show in their new public space, I was honored.

Friend of Mine is in the front of Brad and Adrienne’s printmaking studio. Brad offered to run an edition of prints for me if I wanted to make some poster art, so I painted some crunchy block letters of my favorite phrase and he cut blocks on his laser cutter, then hand printed the edition of 100.

If you’d like a print, they are available in my store. All prints purchased by Thursday 6/5 will ship this week. I’ll be donating $5 of each poster sale to R.O.A.R.

Buy a print!

You can also bundle it with a sticker. I am trying to figure out how to bundle shipping while not wanting to spend any more time exploring the back end of squarespace, so for now there are 15 prints available without a sticker, and 15 with one.

Thanks and bye!

Shelby

Amanda freaking Gentry, one of my most favorite artists and people. Her super power at our agency was the tedious, meticulous minutiae of tightening up brand guidelines and InDesign files, making sure each spot-color gray was labeled and used in only the right instances. In her ceramics studio, her dedication to order and craft burned even brighter: hand-built terra cotta vessels that were so uniform that you’d think they’d been manufactured. But no, each one had been slab- or coil-built, hollowed out with fingertips, wet sanded down and slowly dried to a perfect curve.

In the hours we’d spend in her studio, I’d witnessed that at every point in her process, Amanda would smile really big and say, “this is my favorite part.”

That sentiment cracked me up in the moment, but lately I’ve been pondering it like a prayer.

Because existing is getting harder, I’m having a harder time making art. Maybe you are feeling the squeeze—working, working and every month just squeaking by. I certainly am. I find myself no longer sustained by in the satisfaction of a completed task or a paid invoice, there’s simply no time to bask in that glow if you want to keep the roof over your head. Onto the next prospect.

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What’s truly been helping me lately is reminding myself that I’m in various beautiful communities of artists and creative people, both small and local, as well as large and worldwide, and that I find myself thriving when I become more active in any of those. I just drove an hour and a half from Butte yesterday, just to hang out at a monthly printmakers meet up in Missoula last night and I feel energized this morning.

BT has always kept multiple plates spinning, they are a truly multidisciplinary artist (in the time I have known them, they have been a teacher, co-creator of a facial-hair styling products company, a letterpress printer, furniture maker, sign painter, muralist, illustrator, studio manager, and probably a few more things I’ve forgotten).

I first met BT “Bigtime” Livermore at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. At the time, I was in the early stages of finding my footing in sign painting. From the moment I met BT I felt very drawn to their super cool PNW aesthetic, their vintage tool bag, and their Howling Wolf karaoke. I had so many questions to ask them, but I tried to stay focused on creativity and community. Here’s my Q&A with BT!

We first met at the Arrowmont Pentaculum in 2014? 2015? Was our Pentaculum residency your first time at Arrowmont? 

(It was 2016, according to my Instagram posts!) Yes, the Pentaculum was my first time at Arrowmont. In fact, I think the invite I received to the Pentaculum was the first time I had even heard of Arrowmont. At that time in my life, I was traveling frequently, but the idea of doing an artist residency outside of my general region was not on my mental list of possibilities. That Pentaculum was such a special time for me, meeting so many artists working in a variety of media. It really put art residencies further forward in my mind as something important to my creative life.

What was the first community that you felt you were a part of?

I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis in the 80s and 90s. I’m too young to have been able to experience the era of Prince, Morris Day and the Time, Hüsker Dü, or the Replacements in person, but I’m of the generation that was still very much resonating with that same creative energy around the Twin Cities. In my late teen years, there was a far-too-short-lived spot that opened up in Minneapolis called the Foxfire. It was a coffee lounge up front, with a loading dock/storage garage in the back, which was converted to a small, all ages music venue that held shows most nights.

The Foxfire opened a week after my 18th birthday, and closed a handful of months before I turned 21; nearly perfect timing. Not only did the band I was in at the time get to play a show there, but I found myself drawn to it whenever possible to see music. Around the ages of 19 and 20, I was working a graveyard shift call center job that started at midnight. This allowed me the opportunity to go see a show at the Foxfire - or one of the few other all ages music options - have fun until around 11:40 pm, and then head off to work.  I was probably going out to 3-4 shows a week at my peak. I started to realize that I was seeing the same people at the shows, and then I’d see them again the next week at a different venue, and even though I was an intensely introverted person at the time, they started to realize that I was always out at the shows too, and I got to know some of them. And even if we never really got to become close, or have a decent conversation because the music was so loud, we were all there at the same time, same place, and for the same reason. I’m sure so much of this is nostalgia talking, but there are absolutely magical feelings of togetherness and community that I felt during that time period, that I have been aching for ever since. The building where the Foxfire once lived is now an upscale breakfast restaurant…

What role do you naturally fall into in a community?

I am a teacher and a keeper of tools. I am very lucky to have grown up the only child of two parents who worked in education. My widely varied interests were supported from a young age, as long as I was learning something tangible. I figured out how to make and fix things myself, often using whatever limited tools or materials I might have at hand. But even more importantly, growing up around educators instilled in me the basic truth that knowledge is meant to be shared, and should never be gatekept. I have been able to share access to the things that I have learned, skills I have gained, and tools I am privileged enough to own, through anywhere from one-on-one sessions, small workshops through arts nonprofits, the creation of multiple, cooperative art studio spaces, all the way to being an instructor at the university level. They all share equal importance for me.

Do you have a memory from your first time feeling creatively burned out?

That would probably be the time period that led to me packing up my life in Minneapolis, and moving to Portland, OR in 2005. I had graduated a few years prior, with a two year, community college degree in web design, right at the lowest point for the industry after the dot-com bubble of the very early 2000s. I was working a day job, making graphics for a small internet advertising company, and creating simple, cartoony, linoleum block prints and acrylic paintings at night, which I was semi-successfully selling on eBay (in a pre-Etsy world). My obsession with listening to and making music in my teen years was quickly being overshadowed by a desire to make visual art, but I was in no place to consider myself ready for any kind of larger step into the art world. I knew innately that I had the drive to MAKE STUFF, but I was still lacking any sense of how to process inspiration from my life and the world around me into work that said anything meaningful. Now that I’m older, I can recognize the symptoms of feeling trapped into making fluff work, or spending too much time making things for clients and not myself; and can often break out of that before it reaches full burnout; at the time, I just knew I was very unhappy, and I started to blame it all simply on my location. I was very aware of the music scene in Minneapolis, but was so shut off to what was happening with visual arts around me, except for perhaps in the posters for the shows I was attending. Still being very introverted, I never bothered to actually reach out to other artists in person, or visit open studios or small galleries instead of just art museums. I felt alone in what I was creating, but became laser-focused on leaving completely, rather than working to find a community where I already was. In the summer of 2005, I got laid off from my job, thanks to the financial burden created by mistakes made elsewhere in the company. By mid-September of that year, I was living in Portland, a place I had visited a handful of times over the previous five years. When I moved, I made the tough decision to make myself into a far more social person than I had been before, and wouldn’t you know it, I was quickly inundated with friends and collaborators in the creative world, and making work that felt so much more enriching than anything I had made in the past. Those early days in Portland really made me into the artist I am today, but with 20 years of hindsight, I frequently consider scenarios of what my life could have been, if I had made more of an effort to just find my people in Minneapolis, instead of blaming a city for my problems.

You’re someone with a lot of talents and interests. How important is it to be multifaceted in how you make money and use your creativity?

I’m not sure it is important for everyone, but I do know it is vital for me. I certainly see the  positive side of being focused, and truly taking the time to become masterful at one talent or art form, but having varied interests and outputs allows me to ride the ups and downs more steadily. Those can be personal, mental hurdles - like feeling bored with painting or drawing, so I make a few letterpress prints - or they can go along with the needs of my professional life - I have a tendency to work on more logo designs or other computer-based work in the winter, when exterior sign painting is difficult, if not impossible, where I currently live, in Butte, Montana.

What community has been the most restorative to your artistic practice?

My own growing acceptance of my place in the queer community, both in Butte, and the larger world, has informed much of my recent, personal artwork and has allowed me to create work that I am both intensely proud of, but also has helped other people with similar stories feel seen and maybe not so alone in this world. I have known since high school that I didn’t necessarily feel “straight” - whatever that means - and that the trappings of manhood and masculinity felt very constricting and off-putting to me. But, I never really found a good label for what I felt I was, so I just kind of floated, just wanting to be me, but feeling more and more depressed as to why the world around me’s vision of “me” was not aligning my own internal feelings. Shortly after moving to Portland, I joined a small art group, made up of queer artists and allies. At the time, I was never specifically asked if I identified as queer or an ally, and still unsure myself, continued to walk on a tightrope between the two for years.

It wasn’t until the COVID pandemic in 2020, and months of physical separation of myself from society’s judgements and ideas about who I was, that I was truly able to be open about my queer identities. As the world started opening back up from lockdown, so did I. I am currently a board member of the Butte Pride Foundation, which organizes the yearly Pride Festival in Butte, along with other, smaller events throughout the year. I also recently had a solo art show, entitled “Oh, the Wait of it All,” at the Missoula Art Museum in Missoula, Montana, which was on display from September 2024 to January 2025. The show was mainly focused on the struggles and joy of coming out as both asexual and agender later in life, and received a very good reception, if I can brag a bit.

What has your experience been in creating community with other artists [I’m thinking here about Magnetic North but I know there were many before and since]? What were the big windfalls? What were the struggles?

This is such an important one for me. I had to save it for last. I would not be the artist I am today, were it not for multiple positive experiences of being involved in collaborative art studios. Before Magnetic North, during a time I was focused on illustration work and self published comics as my creative output, I joined up with a small group of other illustrators and comics professionals into a studio space we called Tranquility Base. We moved around a few different spots around Portland over the years, sharing space and rent; it was a wonderful experience, but was solely a clean, dry room for drawing and computers. As my artistic career progressed, with printmaking, and then sign painting, taking over illustration and comics, I knew it was time for a different sort of work space. But, the type of space I hoped for, a larger floor plan, with a mix of clean and dirty spaces, water access for screen printing, and possibly even a garage door for loading in and out, would have been well out of reach for me as a single artist, even at a time when Portland was still relatively affordable. By that point, I had amassed a pretty large group of artist connections, both in the larger Portland art scene, as well as from my time as a student at Pacific NW College of Art. The first iteration of Magnetic North was in an old car mechanic shop, about 1,400 sq ft, and we were able to cram workspace for six artists, including a shared screen printing setup, and small front room which served as a retail shop. It also included space to run a burgeoning beard and moustache styling products company that I co-owned with a friend. That first MagNo taught me a lot about cooperatively running a larger space, working with other artists and varying personalities, sharing equipment, and the rigors of trying to keep open even a small retail space with regular hours. After a few original MagNo artists moved away from Portland, it felt like it was time to expand again. My facial hair company was doing very well, far beyond our hopeful expectations when we started, and we needed a larger production space, and I had also recently acquired a large letterpress, as well as expanded my collection of woodworking tools. We found a 3,800 sq ft space in SE Portland, clearly a former weed grow operation in the days before legality, and it was a dream come true. It had a roll up garage door, two separate chunks of clean office spaces, a plumbed room for screen printing washout, extra room for a sizable woodshop, separate space for moustache wax production, and a huge, open room in the middle, large enough for shared screen printing and letterpress equipment, my wall easel and full setup for sign painting, huge, shared work tables, a lounge/kitchenette, and two gallery walls! We were able to find many new artists who wanted to join in the fun, but buildout was necessary and pricey. If it weren’t for the moustache wax company footing most of the bill for the first few months, it would’ve really been a struggle to get things going as smoothly as we did. Eventually, we got everyone moved in, with flexible subleases (very important for artists), and for the next three years, made space for between 10-15 artists at any given time. 

Magnetic North is one of the things I am most proud to have played a role in over my entire life; not just the physical space, but the ethos I believed we crafted over the years. The openness to artists at varying stages of their career and budgets, the sharing of tools and equipment, and witnessing how access to a new tool can send someone in a whole new creative direction. Countless collaborations were born out of a shared space like that, and we were open so frequently for public events, workshops, art shows, that we really became an active part of not just Portland’s art and design scene, but the neighborhood as a whole. In the warmer months, I used to work late, sometimes until 3 or 4 am, often with our garage door open; watching the world go by as I labored away. During those nights, I provided many a bathroom, or place to sit and sober up to people emptying out after bar close, leant tools to cab drivers who pulled into our parking lot and needed to fix something quick, and provided water, food, money, or a friendly person to talk to for folks in need of those things during the dark of night. I am a large person, with the option to be an intimidating presence to those who don’t know that I’m really a big teddy bear, so I was privileged to be able to work at night with an open door and feel safe. It surely would have been easier to just keep our doors closed, provide space and opportunity for our paying artists only, make sure we covered the rent, and have that be that, but the real magic of that space just wouldn’t have been achieved. When I decided to leave Portland for Montana in 2016, it made me so happy to be able to see the space continue on for a few more years, under the guidance of the other artists involved. It proved to me that spaces like that can exist, and from day one, was never just the work of me, or any other singular artist, but truly was something we built together. I currently work in a 100+ year old storefront space in Butte, which I share with my partner and her custom art framing business. That has been an amazing experience in itself, getting to work alongside the person I’ve chosen to share the rest of my life with as well; still sharing tools and opinions, sometimes sharing clients, but the dream to build something as multi-faceted and varied and special as Magnetic North again will always be a goal of mine until the day I die probably.

What advice do you have for someone who is looking for community?

It’s a bit too obvious, but go out and find it. If it ends up that you’re simply not finding what you’re looking for, then that’s your sign that you may be the person that needs to get the wheels moving, as daunting as that can be. Depending on where you live, and the specificity of the genre of community you’re seeking, you may not readily find it in person right away. The internet and social media, especially in the arts world, certainly feels like a bit of an AI-generated hellscape these days, but there are still rad people making rad work out there, and we all need support from each other, even if it’s just commenting on or sharing a post. I’m by no means saying that social media is “community” in any sense of the word, but I think it is still a useful tool to find others that are into what you’re into, and make the initial connections to people that may eventually lead to something more concrete, if the fates will it to be. I mean, look at us: we met nine years ago, have never even lived in the same region of the country at the same time, let alone the same city, we communicate only occasionally through digital means, and yet if I was asked to name the names of people I felt I shared community with in the arts and sign painting world, your name would truly be one of the first out of my mouth. And at some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, we will see each other in person again, and then we keep going from there!

Locally though, and with “community” in a much broader sense, I have learned the hard way that it really does require the effort of interacting with other human beings. Find a way to actually meet your neighbors; share food with them when possible. If you live in a colder, winter climate like I do, and are physically able to, go shovel someone else’s sidewalk, especially if they may find that a more difficult task. Show up to protests, rallies, and events for causes you care deeply about. “Become a regular.” Go out to local art, music, and theater, and make use of your library or other free places to congregate. Shop locally whenever possible; and by all means, get to know the names of the people you interact with at the places you frequent (with their consent, of course), and then USE THEIR NAMES WHEN YOU SEE THEM! (I struggle a lot with that last bit; that twinge of fear that I’ll get it wrong, even if I’m 99% sure I know what it is.) If you really want community, you have to acknowledge the equal humanity of those around you. The cashier at your local grocery store or gas station is not just an NPC in a video game; they are probably just like you in more ways than you realize.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about creative burnout or community?

I think the best thing for limiting burnout is to recognize the symptoms before it gets too bad, and then step away or slow down, and process why you are feeling that way. Do not just work through it in the hopes it will alleviate itself if you just finish one more project. I struggled with this for many years, really until about three years ago, coinciding with the birth of our youngest child; my first, but the third for my partner and our family. Work finally took a back seat for me when confronted with this new, completely helpless being, who relied on us for absolutely every possible need. 

Burnout is going to look and feel different for everyone, so I don’t need to rattle off symptoms, but take the time to learn how your mind and body reacts as it heads towards failure. There is no shame in taking a mental health day (or week), no shame in asking for an extended deadline from a client, and no shame in stepping away from projects entirely if they feel toxic or are not fulfilling any true need of yours.

My final thoughts: BT is a national treasure and someone who I look up to more and more each year. Thank you BT for sharing your thoughts with me! I hope anyone who reads this feels encouraged to work through the hard times, talk to a neighbor, and go to an all-ages show. Til next time, take care of yourself and each other.

Like many people this time of year, I am looking back and reflecting, but it’s not because there’s a new calendar hanging in our kitchen. I’m looking back because I’m taking Jake’s advice.

We met riding bikes and being hungover at noon on most Sundays. On top of those interests, Jake is also an incredibly talented dancer (I was lucky enough to see him perform for the Louisville ballet before he moved back to Ohio to be with his sweetheart). When I pleaded into the void for other artists to make me bulletproof to burnout, he offered this:

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I’m writing this from my upstairs “office”—the room where I sew and paint my banners. I have had a slow-rolling cold all weekend, and right now I am steaming my sinuses open over a bowl of Shin Ramyun. There is fresh snow on the north sides of the roofs in my neighborhood, but it will all be gone by this afternoon.

When I was a kid I spent hours at my Aunt Pam’s house writing science fiction stories on the computer in their family room. I remember most of these stories involved girls with blue skin on steampunky Titanic-esque boat rides (did everyone’s childhood include a brief but passionate Titanic craze?), and a lot of them were pretty horny. I wrote like a kid who hadn’t heard the concept of being embarrassed by your creativity because I guess my parents thought it best to let public school teach me about shame! Which worked!!!

I am now a reluctantly self-aware adult. With every year, I have become more afraid of being creative and sharing art, feeling less like the plucky (and cringe) Gifted and Talented kid. I’m taking fewer photographs of everything these days, and then regretting it (as I google how much greenhouse gasses icloud storage makes every year). What’s the point, when the Metaverse owns distribution and reproduction rights to everything I post? What public school didn’t beat out of me was eventually dispatched by parasocially following the careers of people I’d never met online, cranking up the volume on the voice in my head that tells me I’m not good enough, my work is not good enough, that all I’ve done is wasted paint and moved the hands forward on the Climate Clock.

Recently I was feeling very boo-hoo about this, and I put out a general call for advice. The big bummer was that instantly the overwhelming majority of replies were from people in the same boat. Surprising to no one, but certainly not good news for me. That’s what I get for having the hubris to seek a cure for what ails me on the very app that sucks away at my sense of self-worth.

Luckily, there were a few very, very good replies in the mix, and the universe also handed me some profound in-person advice that same week.

For the next few months, I’m going to feature some of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from other artists. In that way, I hope to lift all boats (let’s all get inspired!) and also gush about these amazing people.

The week of my Inquiry, I visited Abbigail Lilly at The Cosmic Academy for Curious Youngsters, an art camp that she runs in Brandenburg, Kentucky. Abbigail Lilly and her partner Billy Lilly are two of the most prolifically creative people I have ever met and I cannot even attempt to list all of the outlets they channel creativity into. I was there with my tail between my legs, having to return an upholstered curtain that I had promised (maybe over a year ago??) that I would remake with new fabric and fringe for the free movie theater they are building.

Free movie theater is not the right way to describe this project. At about 1000ft², Billy has turned his studio into a shrine to movies. The walls are adorned with relief carved vignettes of everything from The Wedding Singer to Five Elements Ninjas. In a trite attempt to sum it up, it’s a beautifully-balanced love letter to intuitive art and pop nostalgia.

This lifestyle is afforded to Abbigail and Billy because they live in a tiny, tiny town. Brandenburg is where they both grew up. Being in an area where the rent is cheap and gentrification isn’t breathing down their necks means they also don’t have many distractions from their art practices (I’m trying to say there ain’t shit to do out there besides hang out with Billy and Abbigail, or take a nature walk (I feel especially qualified to say this as someone who also grew up in a Town Without Shit To Do, and currently resides in a marginally larger town that is considered by most of the country as Fly-Over Territory)). This deficit in a local scene works for them because they can connect to a broader network via social media, which stands in interesting opposition to my problems with the same platforms.

I never have to ask Abbie or Billie to share their creative juices with me; they both give so freely from their seemingly endless supply. As soon as Julian and I walked in, Abbie brought up my query for creative tips, and—in the way she makes everything sound like the most fun and exciting thing I’ve never heard of—she offered me some really easy advice and shared what works for her.

For Abbigail, it’s all about ceremony, regardless of whether or not the creative project sees the light of day. So, when Abbie and her band Cutie Alert write a new song, they will ask a random person (but usually an elementary-aged kid at Cosmic) to notarize the Creativity Log. This is once again very on brand for her: she excels at making things feel really special for the kids in her program. I can imagine when the stakes are always that high, that finishing a personal drawing might not feel like the grand accomplishment it used to.

I also need a carrot stick for non-creative things (aka life-sustaining obligations), because those things get neglected almost as much as making art. When we walked in, Abbie was flipping through a planner with money envelopes adorned with stickers. The holographic and colorful artwork accompanied dry fundraising goals like dental work and car repairs. I could see calculations on the backs where she had celebrated every step towards her goal. I have never been a good planner/journal-keeper (so many well-intentioned slingshot planners went unused!), but I have found an app called You Need A Budget that I hope to use to help me gamify savings.

With Abbie’s influence, inviting a little ceremony into the minutiae is a way that I would like to bring more creative energy into my practice. I am thinking of making an email persona for my business so that I can send emails from a “member of the team” instead of the lone overworked individual trying to keep a business afloat. Maybe I will create both a project manager and an accounts payable identity. Maybe when I’m really scrambling to wrap something up, I will pretend that I am three people doing the job as a team. Maybe I am just giving myself Third Man Syndrome.

This week also happens to be Abbie’s birthday :) if you liked learning more about her process and the Cosmic Academy, you can send her some birthday coin (or buy stickers which are $3 each!)

Send Abbigail some money via Paypal!

Buy Billy's Artwork!

What I’m doing:

• It’s Cyber Monday, so I’m allowed to hock my silly little posts for a few more hours! I’m going to release my first subscriber post this week. I’ll be focusing first on artists that I love who gave me great advice on getting out of a creative slump. I’ll also be sharing more about process, deeper dives into inspiration, etc. It’s $36 to subscribe for a year, which helps me afford the time it takes to write this cockamammy.

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• I’m planning on begging Elizabeth to print another round of frog prints early 2025. I had never planned on becoming a one-trick pony, but the frog posters keep getting discovered on new corners of the internet and making money as an artist is mercurial now as ever, so I will take my coins while they are still making em.

• I got really homesick this past week while visiting with family. My little brother and his wife are pregnant and building a home on our family land. I feel called to spend more time there so that I can be an aunt for the first (and maybe only) time! As a result I’ve been diving into passive & small homestead inspiration from the great Lloyd Kahn who I have written about many times. If anyone reading this is on a similar journey, please reach out!

What I’m reading:

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

  link supports Set & Setting Books, Louisville KY

  (who the fuck thought it would be fun to read this right now??) Getting back to my horny scifi roots, I’ve been reading more in this genre lately. I finished Blood Child in October and finally got my hands on a copy of this…just in time for the election of our own President Donner.

• North Woods by Daniel Mason
  link supports Foxing Books, Louisville KY
  I got this book by chance when I was in Chicago having a very dreamy morning with Jenna, Ryan and Elizabeth. After breakfast, we popped over to City Lit so that Ryan and Elizabeth could buy a physical copy of an audiobook that they loved (they are just really wonderful like that). I said I’d get one too, but instead we ended up sharing the copy (which I regret to say is still sitting on my bookshelf even after having finished the book in September—I promise to mail it back to them!). This book has everything! If you’re a fan of historical fiction or George Saunders or New England or sentient bugs or slightly spooky shit, you will love it.

What I’m listening to:

• Smosh Reads Reddit Stories
  Another friend rec, this time from my buddy Josh. I have no idea who the host is, I’m assuming a youtuber? I have to be careful listening to this when I paint because sometimes I am laughing too hard to hold a steady line. I’ve linked one of the more unhinged episodes.

• Cartoon Darkness by Amyl and the Sniffers
  Aren’t we all tearing this one up right now? Tiny Bikini has been stuck in my head for about 3 weeks.

• Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
  I just started this in audiobook form so I don’t have a synopsis or thoughts yet, but this came highly recommended from my friend Brad.

• Among Other Things by Bella White
  I linked an alternate version of one of my favorite songs from this album, but in my opinion, there are no skips. Numbers does a great job of encapsulating that feeling when time jumps from creeping by to flowing like sand through your fingers.

If you subscribed to my MailChimp newsletter, you have been added to the free subscription of this dispatch. A new thing is that I will be offering a $5/mo subscription tier. Who do I think I am? Good question.

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Another newsletter behind a paywall?

I know. I have hemmed and hawed on doing this for a while, but the truth is that I am not a disciplined writer, journal-keeper, or archivist. I strive to be better at all three things; at the end of the day, it takes a lot of time. A way to make this new practice more consistent is to have a little compensation for my time. I want to be intentional about what I share here, and I hope you will see some value in this exercise. If not, the free option exists!

Who is this for?

I’m writing for a few audiences. I want this to be a space for folks to stay in touch if you—like me—struggle to stay on top of phone dates with friends who now live across the country or the world. I want this to be a space for you to watch me trying something new so that you can feel empowered to do the same. I want to archive the inspiration, the failures, and the mountains of media I consume to fuel my practice.

So, what do I get?

If you’re a free subscriber: expect the same thing you’ve always received from me! I will post no more than 6x a year with updates, events, and sales.

If you choose to pay for a subscription, this is where I will be applying more focus. You can expect documentation of my process, recommendations, some medium-length bad writing, and consistency. I will be posting a minimum of once a month, at the end of each month.

Thanks for reading to this point! I hope to see you in the Outbox! xoxo-Shelby