Today was supposed to be a rest day before DJing the Local Color Estate Sale on Sunday. Instead, I distributed a ceramic skull and shipped another (to 31 Skulls artists). I also had to go to the printers and get the brochure I designed last night printed & folded. I did manage to take 2 hour nap before prepping some music for tomorrow's event. I'll get some rest on Monday.

I pulled an all-nighter working on this brochure design for Local Color. I gotta get a bunch printed and folded on Saturday so we can distribute them on Sunday at the Estate Sale. I really like how this came out!

All week I've been coming into work, Local Color's Keystone Studios, to be available when artists pick up their ceramic skull, cash & gift card, for the 31 Skulls Fundraiser (Local Color commissions local artists to paint ceramic skulls that are used as prizes in a raffle) It's been fun getting to meet new artists and see old friends and watching them get excited for this project!

Today I sent the confirmation emails to all the artists participating in Local Color's 31 Skull fundraiser this year. It thanked them all for signing up, gave instructions for picking up the skulls and information about how the fundraiser works. I also hung out at Local Color Keystone for a few hours as artists came to pick up their ceramic skulls. When artists arrived, I asked them to pose with a blank skull for a quick photo. Here are the pictures of me...

Today I went to the Local Color Keystone studio to get some work done. I'd primarily been working from home these last couple of months. I was on the computer all day till I had to test some audio equipment. They have a couple of 12" speakers there, so I checked to make sure they worked when I plugged them into my DJ controller. They did! I also used my new mic for the first time. I'll be using them when I DJ/MC their Estate Sale on September 26. It should be a fun gig!

Today I met with local artist & musician Ben Henderson, a Local Color member, to talk about music for Local Color's 31 Skulls fundraising campaign/event. Last week Ben recorded a sick 80s style synth recording and shared it on Instagram. I DM'd him and told him about my idea for promoting 31 Skulls like an 80s horror movie and that his music sounded perfect for it. Today I visited him at home and he recorded and produced a minute-long song in a couple of hours. Now I need to attach this audio to some video. I would love to film a campy 80s horror movie scene, complete with grainy footage, and use it in our fundraising campaign this year.

​I attached a snippet of the song below.

One of my big responsibilities at Local Color is running the upcoming 31 Skulls fundraiser. Last year was their first time doing it. Local Color commissioned artists to decorate ceramic skulls then awarded them as raffle prizes during their live-streamed Halloween event. I was one of the participating artists. We're commissioning artists again this year but doing a different event on Halloween weekend. (More details TBA) Tonight we sent out the artist invitation email with a form for them to fill out, and we've already received ten sign-ups! It's been so much work to get to this point, and we're barely getting started! The following month and a half are going to be busy and exciting! Wish us luck!

It's been almost 2 months, and I don't know why I waited this long to let everyone know that I took a contract job with Local Color as their Communications & Development person. I've been working with the amazing staff on the weekly and monthly newsletters, social media posts, and upcoming fundraisers. It's been a learning experience for all of us and I'm slowly starting to get in a groove. This is a paid gig till the end of the year but I'm also volunteering my time & services, like in a couple weeks, I'll be DJing & MCing their Estate Sale, to help artists in residence sell artwork before moving out of their current building. It should be a lot of fun and I hope a lot of people show up to support!

For the last two gigs I DJ'd, I had to borrow a microphone, and now that I got a 3rd gig lined up, DJ/MCing Local Color's Estate Sale in a few weeks, I decided to buy a mic. I went with the tried & true Shure SM58. I used these at work for years, and they never failed. Now that I own a mic, I'm only a couple of 12" speakers away from having a viable mobile DJ rig. (I had been using my employer's equipment all these years.) I've turned down the offer to buy my own rig a couple of times before, but now I'm thinking of doing it.

Another great event! My booth was in between two of my friend's booths, Jodi & Francisco, and it was a lot of fun talking and hanging with them. There was an adorable baby girl who walked into my booth and danced when I had my party lights on. I gave her a couple buttons and a high-five. I sold my last Medium San Jose shirt off the display and the rest of the black & blue ones so it's time to print some more. I'm considering doing something similar to the custom & pre-orders I recently did with my 1.0 shirts.

Damn! I've so busy these last few weeks that I haven't done much prep, or even promoted, the event I'm vending at tomorrow night. It's the Street MRKT (part of the First Friday Art Walk) and I'm doing it again, 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM. It's on South First Street in Downtown San Jose between Reed St. and San Carlos St. I'll be setup somewhere near Miami Beach Club on the corner of San Salvador. I'm looking forward to seeing new and familiar faces while I'm out there!

My new job has me in charge of sending out it's two newsletters. The small one goes out about once a week to less than 100 people and the big one, the monthly newsletter, goes out to 1000+ subscribers. I've already sent out a few of the smaller one but the big one, the monthly, will be my first. And because there hasn't been a monthly newsletter published since April, this next one is gonna be chunky! The deadline to get everything submitted is at 5:00 PM tomorrow, so today I worked on getting everything formatted in preparation. I'm a little nervous but I really can't wait to get it over with and get started on next one.

What did I do today? I worked but didn't doing anything art related besides take on a new logo design job and sketched some ideas. This should be a fun little job!

That's right! After countless delays and being 2 weeks behind schedule, all the custom & pre-order 1.0 t-shirts are now on their way to their new owners! Each order includes some throwback goodies, a hand-drawn Thank You card and an extra special surprise gift! After everyone receives their order and opens their gifts I'll share what the surprise was! Stay tuned!

I've been saying the shirts are shipping out tomorrow — all week. This time it's for real tho! The shirts and the individually sealed surprise gifts have been put in mailers along with some extra goodies and hand drawn "Thank You" cards. (I realized when I was almost done sealing the mailers that I forgot to sign most of the cards... Doh!) All I have to do now is pay & print the postage and drop them off at the post office. The home stretch!

I had work meeting that ran long then had to catch up on other work so I didn't ship all the t-shirt orders today. I did deliver one though. It was for a friend and it was exciting to watch her open up the bag and pull out the surprise gift I made! Can't wait to get the rest of the orders out!

Another great event! I sold a few shirts and prints tonight, but most importantly, talked to people in person! I talked to friends (some who I haven't seen in years), people who had never seen my stuff before, folks who have. I even saw a guy wearing one of my pink & black San Jose shirts and asked if I could take his picture! I had missed vending so much! I can't wait to be back out there again, choppin' it up with folks, at the next two First Friday Street Mrkts in September and October!

I got an email this morning from one of the two t-shirt vendors I ordered blanks from saying that 7 of the 9 shirts I ordered from them weren't in stock. Is kinda pissed off but didn't have time to argue, nor would it have helped the situation. I spent the rest of the day emailing back & forth, looking for alternatives and contacting buyers. I think everything is good now but I really doubt I'll have the shirts ready by this Friday like I originally intended.

I finally ordered all the blanks for the 1.0 reprints, pre-orders & customs. I'm afraid by the time they arrive and finally get printed it'll be after the First Friday Street Mrkt event on August 6th. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that I'll have them finished before then. We'll see.

In other news... I sketched this thing below. There's also a time-lapse video below that.

I'm only waiting on a couple email replies to order blanks for the 1.0 shirts. I didn't it would take this long. I didn't account for any delays, like the minimum orders or shirts to be out of stock. Now it's getting really close and I don't know if I'll get them printed and in hand before vending on First Friday on August 6th. Fingers crossed!

I unpacked from my weekend trip. Washed the dishes that have been sitting in the sink all week. Bought a couple new tires for my car and scheduled an installation appointment. Read a bunch of notes and documents to get up to date on a new project at work. Hopped on a Zoom meeting to brainstorm ideas for that project then did an evening site visit to take photos and make notes. Sent out the last invoice for custom t-shirt orders. I also made a short list of things to do tomorrow so I don't forget.

I spent a few hours this afternoon in a meeting, getting an overview of the online tools & services I'll need to learn for my new jobby-job. It's a lot of stuff to wrap my head around and get familiar with but I'll figure it out. During the meeting, when I went back to feed the parking meter, I noticed a big crack on one of the tire's sidewalls. I was planning on driving my car to Ukiah for the weekend to together with a bunch of my cousins. For a while I thought I was going to miss it. Luckily my brother it also going so I'm hitching a ride with him tomorrow afternoon. The tire replacement will wait till next week. And in other news... I'm just about done processing all the 1.0 pre-order & custom-order requests that came in yesterday. All the the confirmation emails have gone out and most invoices too. I'll try and wrap that up over the weekend while I'm away. It feels good to be busy again and I'm excited to hang out with my cousins these next few days!

Today I called last call on Instagram for the 1.0 pre-orders and custom shirts. I received a few pre-order sales and custom-order soon after. More than had come in in all the days since I started this campaign. I was pleasantly surprised! I'm still in the process of confirming most of the custom orders via email. Once they're confirmed I'll send invoices and place the orders. So far everything is going good and still on track to have the finished shirts ready by the first week of August.

Although I've already been offered this new job and I accepted it, I still haven't told many people about it. I'm just waiting on a few more things to happen before I completely spill the beans. Regardless, I'm already doing work researching for an upcoming project I'm in charge of. Tonight I came across a few hurdles. One of them will have a huge impact and may change everything that's already been planned for this project. I've thought of a few workarounds but it needs to be discussed with the rest of the team before moving forward. This reminded me of putting together a jigsaw puzzle. We have to put the right pieces in place and build upon them in order to complete the bigger picture.

I had my first work meeting this afternoon to go over some basic stuff to get me onboard plus details on the projects I'll be spearheading over the next 5 months. I'm really excited about this and can't wait to really sink my teeth into it. I also packaged and delivered a t-shirt order that came in yesterday from a buddy of mine. I drew him a cool little thank you card which I'll post later.