Year in Review

by Terri & Ariela

"Well, that was interesting*." ~ Just About Everyone

It's been a year. There were plenty of highs and just about as many lows. We released 14 products, discovered that Ariela is eligible to be nominated for awards (more on that later), did our best to keep Combover Caligula out of the White House (didn't succeed on that one).

Picture shows chibi Terri and chibi Ariela toasting with champagne flutes. Terri is giving the thumbs up.
Not pictured is the next frame, where Ariela is passed out after drinking half a glass of champagne.

Some important numbers from Geek Calligraphy in 2016:

• Got our 1st business license (in Chicago, you need to renew every two years, so this is the first of many)
• Launched 1st ecommerce website
• Launched social media presence on 3 platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr
• Released 14 new products since launch
• Donated items to 2 charities, raising a total of $196
• Hung art in 4 art shows in 3 states
• Ariela started scribing her 1st sacred text (Megillat Ester/Scroll of Esther)

We now have 14 art prints, 8 greeting cards, 5 ketubah designs, 3 miscellaneous Judaica products, and several small add-ons.

When Ariela was first signing up for our website platform (we use SquareSpace because of our ketubah form needs), she was debating between two service packages, one which allowed a maximum of 20 products and a more expensive one that allowed for unlimited items. We're rather thrilled that we need the latter.

Before the nomination period for the 2016 Hugo Awards closed (back in March), Terri noticed something very interesting. Well, first off she noticed that the Artist categories delineated by the Hugos were rather antiquated and no longer reflect the SF/F art landscape. But in her examination of the categories she realized that because our art has been shown at convention art shows, Ariela is eligible for the Best Fan Artist** award. Due to yet another instance of #Puppygate, a last minute campaign did not get enough nominating ballots to put Ariela on the list. We are hoping that in 2017, the air will clear some. 

Since Geek Calligraphy art has been hung in convention art shows in 2016, once again Ariela is eligible to be nominated for the Fan Artist Hugo. If you are in a position to nominate, we hope you will consider her work.

It's been a good first year for Geek Calligraphy, PCA (present circumstances aside).

Our efforts to make the world a better place continue.  While we were blindsided by the results of the election in November, we have both gotten back up and are doing our best to keep fighting. Each of us has our preferred social justice avenues in our private lives, but here at Geek Calligraphy we will continue to make art. We hope it will inspire you, help you feel less alone, and help you to keep getting up each day. And we're gearing up to meet 2017 head-on.

*The sort implied in "may you live in interesting times," or "Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!"

**"But wait," we're hearing the peanut gallery declare, "Ariela and Terri make money from the art. Doesn't that make Ariela a professional artist?" NOPE! The Pro Artist category requires your art to have appeared in a for-sale print publication (magazine/book cover, book illustrations, etc). This means that you could be making a primary living from art, but unless you've been published that year, you're just a fan. Hence the reference to antiquated categories.***

***TERRI'S NOTE TO SELF: We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting.

New Product: This Should Not Be Normal And It Is Not Okay

By Terri

Usually I come up with pithy copy for this section. Unfortunately, reality is intruding on the parts of my brain that are good at pithy copy. 

Ariela and I are not shy about expressing our political opinions. It's safe to say that if you read this, you have a pretty good idea of what they are. Neither of us are happy with what's going on, and we've spent a lot of time exclaiming loudly at each other over the results of the election.

How It Came To Be:

Everyone from John Oliver* to the Washington Post** is saying "This is not normal."The fact of the matter is that this is becoming our normal, and will be our normal for at least the next four years. Plenty of things that are terrible and should not be normal are, in fact, normal. Systemic racial bias is normal. The wealth gap in our country is normal. Religious hatred is normal. I will argue that kleptocratic cabinet choices and the insane amount of conflict of interest that the PEOTUS has aren't normal***, but continuing to claim that it isn't normal misses the point. What it isn't now and never will be is okay. This is our way of saying that. 

It's also important right now to keep creating. To keep making art, making music, cooking, loving, crafting. To do the things that make you happy, because happiness is the best defense against the mess the next 4 years are going to be. I cast on a rainbow shawl the day after the election. Ariela painted this, and is working on other projects as well.

Ariela added the border text because she felt that the central text by itself was visually boring for calligraphy. Also because she likes Copperplate and has been playing with it lately.

Prints are available in two sizes (8"x10" & 11" x 14", matted dimensions), with two text options. There is a plain white version, and for $10 per size, you can get sparkly silver letters! $5 from each print sale will be donated to EMILY's List.**** One of the ways we fight is by raising money to elect the candidates who can fight for us on every level, from local legislatures all the way to the White House. 

*Fast forward to 5:45 for the first statement of "this is not normal." It will be repeated.

**Yeah, there really are that many articles that we can link one to every letter in the words "Washington Post." And those links were found just by scrolling through their twitter feed.

***For the United States. In lots of countries, this is normal. For us, it's new.

****We are donating a portion of these sales to EMILY's List purely of our own volition. They are not sponsoring this product, nor are they in any way affiliated with it or with Geek Calligraphy.

Custom Ketubah for Terri: A Customer's Perspective

By Terri

Ariela and I have known each other since sometime in the fall of 2004. Our friendship has outlasted a total of 3 serious relationships, as many as 6 casual ones and has been going strong through two marriages (when for some reason, friendships can fall apart). We've kept in touch across an ocean, the distance from Boston to Chicago, and across a few New York City blocks. Even back in 2008, when I was dating someone who is now happily married to someone else, Ariela had claimed "dibs" on my ketubah. I was working at The Judaica House at the time, and knew just how valuable a gift I'd been offered. I also was in a unique position to know exactly what I wanted out of my ketubah. Unsurprisingly, what I thought I wanted turned out nothing like what I ended up with. This is because Ariela is one of the best artists I know, and an incredibly intuitive person when it comes to design. It's also because what Matthew wanted out of the ketubah he was going to be giving to his future wife wasn't like the image I had in my head in 2008.*

I had been thinking about a standard text in a fairly unique font with intricate border art that had lots of hidden images of things that were meaningful to me and my future husband. Mostly these things were geeky - every man I've seriously dated was just as big of a geek as I am. After Matthew proposed, I got an email with this sketch attached:

Image shows a scribbled sketch on notebook paper which will be explained. Also there is a Caspi all-Hebrew ketubah text superimposed on the image.

The sketch came from the wild corner of Ariela's brain where her muse lives, and is the back of a cuckoo style clock with a dragon nesting in the base. There are a few balls of yarn in the eaves, and a scribbled firebird coming out of the dragon's nose.** She apologized that it wasn't at all like the original designs we had thought of, but I reminded her that when I'd conceived those designs it was three years ago and I was a different person then. Now I wanted something that Matthew and I would enjoy. 

I asked Ariela if there would be visible clock gears. She informed me that some of those scribbles were meant to suggest them. I thought that there should be books in the eaves, because while I love to knit for Matthew, he doesn't have the same feeling about yarn that I do. During a brainstorming session with the three of us, Matthew mentioned that he liked dolphins, and Celtic knot work. I wanted there to be a few things in there that brought back how we met. If you look very carefully, you will see that one of the books is Women At the Seder. Matthew and I first really became friends at a seder, and that's the haggadah I was using that night. Matthew wanted some specific comic collections among the books (can you guess what they are?), and I asked for some Manheim Steamroller sheet music, because it reminded me of my father. There is a stuffed bear that Matthew bought in Australia that has always reminded me of Paddington Bear, so Ariela drew that bear with a similar hat. The biggest nod to Matthew is something that was part of the design since its inception, though the sketch doesn't show it. All around the clock is a Hebrew verse from שיר השירים, Song of Songs, rendered in binary. The verse states: "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."

After the brainstorming, the process was largely hands off for me until sometime in July. Ariela would send me sketches of the progress she was making, I would send back lots of exclamation points and typed squeeing. Sometimes I would remind her that while this might be a difficult design, at least I wasn't making her paint a dozen red roses like some of our friends. When she had trouble finding something specific (the sheet music), we tried to figure out a way to include the idea, if not the precise object. When Ariela told me that the font I had long lusted after really didn't mesh with the art, I trusted her.

In July, I sent Ariela the text for the personalization. In early August, she had the art painted and the text ready for me to proofread. At that point, it was done and I didn't think too much more about it. I was dealing with wedding dress fittings, the fact that I was invited to three weddings on either side of my own, and the myriad other tiny details one has to worry about when getting married.

My wedding photographer really digs on process shots. There are a whole bunch of pictures of my getting my makeup done, my mom putting my earrings in and fastening Matthew's boutonnière into his jacket, stuff like that. When he found out that my friend was painting and calligraphing my ketubah, he asked if she could bring it to the wedding with some inking left to do so he could get photographs. 

Ariela finishing the last line of the ketubah at my wedding while we were all getting hair and makeup done.

I honestly couldn't have asked for a better ketubah, one that really tells the story of my relationship with my husband and suits our style and the general decor of our home. It is a beautiful piece of artwork and a wonderful wedding gift from one of my best friends.

My ketubah, in all its glory.

*For one thing, he was dating someone else entirely.

**Based on this LiveJournal post.

Buy Our Stuff, Help People!

By Terri

Image shows Patrick Rothfuss (A Famous Author) holding a very cute lamb.

Ariela is a huge Patrick Rothfuss fan. Even before there was a business, she was trying to figure out how to contribute art to his annual fundraiser for Worldbuilders. This year, they took two of our prints for their auction. The ever popular Coder's Oath, as well as our Families That Game print. If you've been looking to buy one of these pieces and want to contribute to a good cause, please check out the links!

Reminder that if you want to make sure that any gifts you purchase directly from us (as opposed to from Worldbuilders) arrive by December 24, you need to order them by December 14.

Ariela's Love-Hate Relationship with Her Computer

by Ariela

Surface Pro 2, image courtesy of TechSpot.
It's ... okay ... I guess.

In our comedy of chibis last week, I revealed that I grudgingly use a Surface Pro 2. I feel some amount of shame over this. Between my membership in the graphics community and the tech community, I have been strongly inculcated with scorn for Windows. So this is me justifying my choice publicly, and also griping about the situation that led me to it.

Before I left NYC in 2012, I had an iMac desktop and an Ubuntu laptop. I used the Mac for image processing and the laptop for when I was on the go. I had an Intuos II 4"x5", but I did a lot less imaging then, so the tiny work surface wasn't such a hardship. I'd gotten the iMac secondhand as a discard from my uncle's office when they upgraded, so by the time I moved, the cost of packaging it properly to keep the screen from breaking would have been far greater than the value of the computer. Also, when moving to Chicago I started telecommuting and my day job set me up with a workstation at home, and two desktops for one person seemed ridiculous. So I left the iMac with Terri and went to Chicago with my Ubuntu laptop as my only personal computer.

By the time the laptop began to die, I was convinced that running PhotoShop in WINE wasn't going to cut it for me. While I know GIMP has its enthusiastic supporters, it doesn't work for me and I loath using it. I also wanted to get something with a touch screen, since my tiny Wacom tablet was getting cramped, and I prefered the idea of a display I could work on directly.

I was all set to get an iPad and ditch the laptop entirely until I discovered that iPads can't run the full version of PhotoShop. Print resolution for me is 800 dpi and I sometimes work as large as 18"x24". PhotoShop Express maxes out at 72 dpi and 1000 px x 1000 px. So I abandoned that idea and began looking for computers with touchscreens built in. I didn't want to have to get a box and then also an expensive external display.

With Apple making nothing with a full computer operating system and a touch screen, I began looking at PCs. Reviews quickly made it clear that the most sensitive touch screen was on the Surface Pro line. The Surface Pro 2 had come out a few months before and I decided on that. I named it Yang Guifei, a joke which no one has yet gotten, but pleased me.

It came with Windows 8.1 64-bit, and ... it did what I needed it to do. Which was what I had aimed for, but other than that it had a lot of annoying quirks. It also didn't recognize different levels of pressure from the stylus in PhotoShop, which infuriated me at first, but then I found a driver online that fixed that, and after that, the only problems were those that inveitably resulted from an OS that was trying to be both a laptop and a tablet simultaneously and managing to be neither particularly well. Windows 10 eliminated some of that jankiness (the onscreen keyboard no longer pops up every time I put my mouse in a text field despite having keyboard cover attached), but brought with it all the problems that everyone knows and hates about Windows 10. It still reboots unpredictably for no reason I can find, so I have been inspired to save obsessively, which isn't a bad habit, but I shouldn't have to protect myself from guerilla rebooting. And as with any Windows machine, its primary purpose seems to be to run Windows updates.

My Surface Pro 2 is 3 years old now and is beginning to show its age, so I am starting to watch tech news again to see what I might want to get next time. Apple just unveiled its newest laptops, and still hasn't added a touch screen, which has me and a lot of other graphics people I know scratching our heads. (I remain uninterested in buying a computer and an external touch screen, so AirDisplay and Duet's promise of being able to use an iPad as a touchscreen monitor for another device is not enticing to me at all.) Then, as if we don't already have enough proof that 2016 is the year Normal decided to take a leap out a window, Microsoft came out with the Surface Studio, which has impressed the heck out of most people I have spoken with.

I'm hoping to eke at least another year out of this computer before I have to shell out more money. I'm hoping Apple will release a MacBook Pro Pro with a touchscreen before then, but chances are good that I will wind up with a Surface Pro 5.

A Short Guide to the Artistic Process

by Ariela

It's been a fairly productive year here at Geek Calligraphy. In addition to the launch of our website, we put out 13 new products this year (number 14 to come out in December). We have noticed that our projects all tend to fall into the same pattern. So, we present to you, The Artistic Process of Geek Calligraphy, A Comedy.

Dramatis Personae:
Chibi Ariela - The Artist, identifiable by her black driver's cap with a copper badge.
Chibi Terri - The Manager, identifiable by her purple everything and green eyes.

Stage 1: The Idea

Most of the time, a project starts out like this:

Image shows Ariela and Terri at their respective computers.* Ariela is saying "I have an idea!" and Terri responds "Great, let's put it on the calendar."

*Terri is a Mac user. For her sins, Ariela has a Surface Pro 2 by attrition.

Sometimes, though, Terri is the instigator:

Image shows Terri and Ariela on the phone. Terri says "Have you ever considered doing something with $_idea?" and Ariela responds, "That's really good. I must go do it Right Now!"

Stage 2: The Honeymoon Phase

Most projects start out with starry-eyed idealism, as I am convinced that this project where everything will be perfect.

Image shows Ariela sketching at her drafting table saying to herself "This is going to be the best thing ever. Having so much fun!" Appallingly, she is humming to herself.

Unfortunately, this stage doesn't last.

Stage 3: Reality Intrudes

Image shows Ariela at her drafting table, brow furrowed, saying, "Hmm maybe not quite as easy as I thought."

As with all plans, they don't tend to ever come off exactly as they are on paper. Or, in this case, they don't make it to paper exactly as they were in my mind.

Stage 3 can last a short time or a long time, but it is invariably followed by...

Stage 4: Despair

Image shows Ariela headdesking at the drafting table, eyes squeezed shut, wailing, "I ruined it forever, it sucks, I suck, why did I ever think I could do this, I need to go throw my drafting table out the window..." Terri, in a speech bubble emanating from Ariela's cell phone, says, "Babe, you're done for the night. Have a cup of tea and stay away from the art for a few days." Terri is knitting a rainbow shawl and has her headset in like a sensible person.

Every project has a stage where you get lost in the weeds for a while. When you hit this point, continuing to work through it is frequently a losing proposition. The best thing to do, if you are not on a looming deadline and have the luxury, is step away and do something completely different until something clears out in your brain and you can resume work without whatever brain lactic acid buildup was putting you in a funk. Many artists have to do this for themselves, but if you are lucky you have supportive colleagues or a Trusty Artist Wrangler (TM) like Terri to take the pen or brush from your clutching fingers, take you gently by the shoulders, and propel you away from the art for a while so you can recharge and return.

Stage 5: Determination

Image shows Ariela, looking unenthused, working at her drafting table saying "I guess I haven't ruined it entirely."

After some time away, it's usually possible to come back and resume work, even if it's not quite so enthusiastic as at first.

Stage 6: Fed Up

Image shows exasperated Ariela working at her drafting table saying, "I just want this to be done. I am sick of it."

By the time I am close to finishing a project, usually I am heartily sick of it. Since most of my art maxes out at 18"x24" and four months' active work, I can't even begin to fathom how writers work on a manuscript for so much longer. Writers, I tip my hat to you.

Stage 7: Finish Up

Image shows a resigned Ariela, holding a paper at arm's length, saying, "*Sigh* I guess this is as good as I can get. Or as good as I can stand to make it. Whatever." She has her headset in. Terri also has her headset in and is saying, "Babe, it's fine. No one will see those nitpicks unless you keep pointing them out. She has made progress on her rainbow shawl.

I had a wonderful mentor in my high school English teacher who told me, "Art isn't finished, it gets abandoned." This was wonderful advice, as it gave me, an obsessive perfectionist, permission to stop. I'm never quite good enough to bring something from my head into the world exactly as I see it. I've gotten much better over the years, but it never happens. At some point I say, "Well, I can't stand to look at this anymore, so it will have to be good enough."

Alternate Creative Process

Sometimes the creative process doesn't follow the above pattern. When it does, it goes like this:

Image shows Ariela and Terri at their computers again, much like in Step 1. Ariela says, "I have a great-" and an exasperated Terri cuts her off saying, "No."

Ariela: I just-
Terri: No.
Ariela: But-
Terri: NO.
Terri now has her arms crossed and a vein throbbing in her forehead.

Image shows very peeved looking Terri saying, "You currently have 3 projects in various stages of production. And you had 2 new ideas already this week. Last I checked, you still had a day job, an apprenticeship, a spouse, and a biological need to sleep and go to the bathroom. When were you planning to do this?:"

Image shows Ariela looking sheepish and somewhat downcast saying "Right." Terri responds "Make a note of it and we'll talk about it when your docket clears a bit."

Alas, not every idea can be executed immediately. This would be the reason why Terri sometimes says that her job description is "Artist wrangler and professional killjoy."

Historical note

The above comedy is a dramatization of real persons and events. Liberties have been taken with dialog, order of events, and even the outfits of the people involved (Terri does sometimes wear things that are not purple).

On a more serious note, I am not actually all id when producing art and Terri is not all superego. There's a lot of give and take in the process. Sometimes I take both parts in the process, because, you know, that's what being an adult and a professional artist is about. But I like to outsource as much of the calendaring and reality-checking to Terri whenever possible. It makes it easier for me to maintain a sense of wonder about the art and keeps me from burning out too frequently. It also frees up my time to spend more on the artistic side of the business.

While I could do this without Terri, I am very, very grateful not to have to. For artists who do not have their own Terri, a network of supportive colleagues is crucial, to help you out when you're stuck in the despair of Stage 4 and to remind you that it really is important to say no to some ideas and opportunities.

Finally, while I speak in generalities about The Artistic Process, nothing here will be true for everyone. Your process may be radically different, doesn't make it any less art. I am not Speaker for the Artists.

And if you are an artist who never experiences the despair of Stage 4, please contact me ASAP to tell me what your secret is.

Turkeys Ate Our Brainz!

Image is of a zombie turkey, courtesy of biomek on DeviantArt.

By Terri

Both Ariela and I are exhausted from Thanksgiving eating and traveling. We hope you enjoyed your time spent with friends and/or family, and that you were not called upon for too much emotional labor.

A regular blog post will go up on Wednesday. After that, back to our usual schedule!

December Shipping Notes

By Terri

Image shows a chibi Ariela under a pile of boxes and cardboard tubes saying "a little help, please..."

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, which means that the $_WINTERHOLIDAY shopping season will soon begin in earnest.* As such, we wish to make you aware of the purchasing deadlines we will be using to make sure that you (or the recipients) receive your purchases in time for a timely gifting. Unfortunately, we do not possess a time machine, so we are unable to ensure Diwali gifts arrive on time. If someone could hook us up with with the TARDIS Express folks, we'll get right on that.

As per our FAQ, we generally ship USPS First Class. That requires the item be mailed by December 20th to guarantee delivery. In order to give Ariela adequate processing time, we will require the orders to be placed by December 14th to make sure that there is enough time to get things printed, matted and shipped to you.

*Seasonal creep is not a thing here at Geek Calligraphy. Even I, a longtime fan of holiday music, will not begin to listen to it until the Friday after Thanksgiving.

New Product: Aliyah Name Cards

By Terri

Tired of playing broken telephone with the gabbai of your local minyan? Out of town and unexpectedly get called up to the Torah? Keep this card in your siddur and you'll always be addressed by your actual name!

Image shows Ariela's hand holding Terri's name card. Letters are in purple (of course) with gold tagin/crowns.

how it came to be:

When Ariela moved to her current community, she noticed that they kept a box of file cards on the bimah with member's names in order to call them up for aliyot. Of course, since she was only there on Shabbat, she never got a chance to fill one out for herself. So she made one. And then (because she is a very lovely person), she offered to make one for her spouse thinking that he might like one. And then the natural realization that other people might want one followed. The idea for a sleeve to keep it inside the siddur came from the card being used as a bookmark and then falling out all the time.

Image shows a siddur with a name card in a sleeve attached to the cover.

They are available in 5 different colors, with ornamental crowns in either the color of the letters or gold or silver. The cards are laminated so that they are durable. The corners are rounded so that they do not poke you. 

At the moment, if you would like to order more than one, you need to add each card to your shopping cart individually and fill out the personalization form. If you would like to order a large batch, please use our website contact form and request it. We will work with you.

Aliyah name cards are $45 each. We are also selling extra sleeves for $4 each here.

Bonus New Product: משנכנס מרחשון

By Terri

Do you need something on your office wall declaring just how happy you are that Tishrei is over? Get one of these before we run out!

Note that this is a special bonus product for November. We will still be releasing a product on the usual third Wednesday of the month (oddly enough, this Wednesday).

How It Came To Be:

Neither Ariela nor I are huge fans of Tishrei. The sheer number of holidays are exhausting. Ariela tends to be an very visible participant in her ritual community and I tend to live the stereotype of the Jewish mother who cooks way too much food and invites the whole world over.*

Needless to say, we were both pretty relieved to welcome in the next month, called Marcheshvan.** Ariela threw together this quick doodle to put up on our various forms of social media:

Image shows the words "Mishenichnas Marcheshvan Marbin B'Simcha" in green and blue.

It's a riff on the traditional line about the month of Adar, (which has the holiday of Purim in it), where we say that when Adar begins, happiness increases. 

When we put this up, people started asking when it was going to be available for purchase. Clearly we had a niche product on our hands.*** So Ariela redid the art**** and printed out a limited number. The reason for the limited number of prints is that each one will be hand gilded. It's also why they're more expensive for the size. The original is also for sale here.*****

The irony of releasing a product touting the joy of this month is quite painful at the moment. Ariela considered not releasing it after all. Ultimately, we decided to go ahead with it because we want to believe that fear, bigotry, hatred, and violence will not be able to deprive us of all that is good in our lives. When we are no longer able to take pleasure in the things we still have, that is when we are truly defeated. We may give in to despair at times, but we do not want to give up entirely.

So we are sending this art out into the world in hopes that it will bring smiles to people's faces at times when they need it, and in faith that next year, we will once again be able to enjoy the respite we gain when Cheshvan 5778 comes along.

Mishenichnas Marcheshvan measures 8" x 10" (includes a silver mat) and is available for $50.

*My main ritual community doesn't welcome a whole lot of women's participation. It's a sore spot.

**Pronounced mahr-khesh-vahn

***Rather similar to "Rabbis <3 Cheshvan" shirts

****The initial plan was to re-scan the doodle at a better resolution. Unfortunately, this made it look even more like a doodle, and it was faster to do a new original.

*****Unless it's already been bought. Then you're out of luck.