New Product Line: Printable Coloring Pages

Did you know there was a National Coloring Book Day? It's today! In honor thereof, we are releasing our August products early this month.

Are you the kind of person who finds the idea of coloring cabbages soothing? Do you own a collection of markers and colored pencils that are specific to the grownups in your home? Then you're going to love our new product line of printable coloring pages!

How It Came to Be:

The adult coloring phenomenon completely mystifies Ariela. She likens coloring inside someone else's line art to wearing someone else's underwear. Terri, on the other hand, finds coloring a soothing activity when knitting starts to bother her joints. One day, Terri found a wonderful coloring book from a company called Calligraphuck. The book was called the F*cking Awesome Coloring Book. The lettering and line work struck Ariela as something she might be able to do and wondered if they took submissions. Terri responded that she could easily turn existing artwork into a downloadable coloring page, like Ursula Vernon does. This led to the pilot page that debuted as a WisCon surprise - Fuck You Pay Me as a coloring page. Today we are releasing that page to the general public, as well as launching the Spoon Dragon coloring page.

Because Ariela finds other people's line art so discomfiting, Terri does all the product testing for these items. She is incredibly happy that she gets paid to color. 

Our downloadable coloring pages are $2 each. This gets you a high resolution file that you can print as many times as you like and color to your heart's content.

(We hope this goes without saying, but PLEASE respect our copyright and intellectual property. When you buy the download, that is for your unlimited use, but not for sharing around and not for posting elsewhere online, except as you proudly display your pretty results. If you do post said pretty results, please tag us!)

New Greeting Card: Covertly Hostile Thank You Card

Did someone get you a gift that you Do Not Want? Did a relative get you something that you need or want, but comes with burdensome strings attached? Were you on the receiving end of a gesture that comes with Expectations of Reciprocity TM? Then send them this card.

How it Came to Be:

With the release of the Covertly Hostile Mother's Day card, we had multiple requests for a similarly styled Thank You card. Everyone has that one person in their lives that gets them a gift where the obligations imposed by the gift far outweigh any benefits of the gift itself.

The card features three types of flowers. Rhododendrons are poisonous and mean beware, yellow carnations mean "No!"*, and lint flowers. We're pretty sure that lint is a relative of flax, and it means "I feel my obligations." Those are the small blue flowers. As with the Mother's Day card, the recipient doesn't need to know any of this. All they need to see is a pretty bouquet of flowers. In addition, there is no master flower dictionary. This provides plausible deniability. 

Like all of our cards, the Covertly Hostile Thank You is available singly for $4.00 and as a pack of 6 for $20.00.

*That is literally how it appears in our favorite flower dictionary. 

New Judaica Product - Mezuzah Parchments

Were you looking for the only place you could find a Spanish & Portuguese style mezuzah written by a woman? This would be it.

Image is a watermarked 12 cm mezuzah parchment in the Spanish & Portuguese style of ritual calligraphy.

How it Came to Be:

You might think that a mezuzah parchment,* being small, would be the easiest of all of the ritual scribal objects. You would be wrong. The technical aspects and rules pertaining to the mezuzah make it actually quite difficult to write.

The first mezuzah size we will be offering is the largest size typically available - twelve centimeters (approximately five inches) tall. Since Terri thinks S&P ktab** is much fancier than Ashkenazi, we will not be offering a "mehudar" or "fancier calligraphy" option

The text on each parchment is scribed by hand by Ariela, and as such will differ slightly from the image. It may take up to 6 weeks for your mezuzah order to ship, depending on the volume of demand at the time. You may notice that the parchment in the image contains faint gray spots. Not every parchment will look like that, as not every parchment comes from a spotted cow.

Important Note: Ariela adheres to strict halachic*** standards when writing her mezuzot. However, not everyone accepts women as kosher scribes, and anyone who does not will not accept this scroll as kosher. If purchasing the scroll as a gift, please be certain to ascertain that the recipient accepts women as scribes.****

*That would be the bit that goes inside the fancy case you were given as a housewarming present.

**Style of calligraphy for ritual objects

***Jewish legal

****Information on women scribes courtesy of Hasoferet

New Product: Social Justice Warrior's Oath

Do random haters on twitter call you an SJW pejoratively? Embrace your defending side with this oath.

How It Came To Be:

While a a warrior isn't a profession you typically find on a resume these days, social justice issues are very pertinent to the geek world. So much so that "SJW" is thrown by one side at the other as an insult, and simultaneously embraced by those who feel that they are fighting the good fight. Many people choose other "classes" besides Warrior, so this print is also available for Bard, Cleric, Mage, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue. None of the classes use gendered terms - that's on purpose. 

As with our other professional oaths, items in the illumination around the edges are the accouterments of the trade. Social justice is a really abstract thing to illustrate, so Ariela went for the RPG classes' tools instead. Drawing from cultures around the world, it is an array of items, many of which could be used by several of the various classes. It was very important to us to move away from the Eurocentrism found in most fantasy role playing settings, which is why many of the items might be unfamiliar to you.

Unlike our other oaths, this one is not humorous.  We think that humor definitely has its place in the social justice movement, but this is not its place.

The Social Justice $_CLASS Oath is 11" x 14" (matted dimensions) and costs $45.

If we did not include your preferred RPG class in our list, please contact us. We can make an oath happen.

New Greeting Card: Covertly Hostile Mother's Day Card

As Mother's Day approaches we introduce a card for those whose relationship with their mother is painful and sometimes even hostile. Use the language of flowers to quietly say how you really feel while outwardly obeying your obligation to express affection.

While Mother's Day is touted as a time to celebrate your mother as the "best mom ever," for many people it serves instead as a painful reminder that their mother is neither good to them nor good for them. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to disengage from toxic moms, and going through socially mandated demonstrations of love is extremely painful when they are so at odds with your emotional reality. We wanted to create a card that would be a little less painful to give, because it would, secretly, convey your true feelings.

This card is a sharp departure from our usual, cutesy chibi card style. Instead it is designed to blend in with the drugstore pack and look entirely unexceptional. Terri described it as filling a niche Hallmark refuses to create, despite the fact that it is their advertising that changed card-giving from a nice gesture on the holiday to a social norm.

The card features two flowers. Lavender means distrust, and tansy means resistance or a declaration against the recipient. But your mother doesn't need to know that. Also, due to the proliferation of flower dictionaries, it is possible to come up with many alternate readings that are completely innocuous, giving you plausible deniability.

Card is $4 and comes with a pink envelope.

Unfortunately, gender stereotypes have thus far defeated our efforts to come up with a Father's Day equivalent, as giving a card featuring flowers to your horrible dad would definitely not count as "flying under the radar." If you have any suggestions for what we might do to offer a Father's Day equivalent, please contact us.

New Greeting Card: Parents' Day Card

by Terri

Did Hallmark neglect to create a card for your non-binary identified parent? Are you forever searching for a less saccharine card to acknowledge those who may have acted as a parent to you though not precisely family? Spoon Dragon is here to help!

How it came to be:

Both Ariela and I have lamented the sameness of the Mother's and Father's Day cards currently available. We wanted to have a card that had imagery that spoke to geeky kids and geeky parents alike, knowing that those don't always overlap in the same family. Also, sometimes your geeky adult isn't your biological parent. That doesn't make the mentor or parental role in your life any less, and it's natural to want to give them a card at this time of the year. Families come in all sorts, and we wanted to make a card to acknowledge the wonderful relationships that are parental, even if they are not with a mother or a father.

So we turned once again to Spoon Dragon. This time they are in the company of a griffin who seems to be Spoon Dragon's parent.

We have deliberately created this card without gendered terms, equally applicable to parents of any gender, or to anyone who fills a parental role in your life. The interior text doesn't mention a specific Hallmark Holiday, and really is appropriate to any time of the year that you want to acknowledge a person to whom the card applies.

The card is $4 and comes with a white envelope.

New Product: All Others Must Bring Data

by Terri

Have you been feeling frustrated by people who think that the plural of anecdote is data? For that matter, do people that can't correctly conjugate the plurals around the word data make you cranky? Then you're probably the target audience for this print.

How It Came To Be:

Both Ariela and I are quite concerned about how established scientific fact is currently being maimed and mangled to fit current political needs. That's not what data are for. A friend suggested we might do a print based around a quote attributed to Galileo, but it seemed too obscure to convey what we were feeling. Instead, Ariela picked a pointed quote attributed to W. E. Deming.

The graphs and spreadsheets in the background are all from Kaggle, a crowdsourcing platform for data-mining and analytics. As such, Kaggle is an enormous library of publicly available datasets, covering everything from Aviation Accident Synopses  to Dogs of Zurich to the Anime Recommendations Database, and many that are much weirder or more depressing. Also an enormous amount of data about Pokémon.

Which dataset is featured here? Why, the metadata on Kaggle usage! It's data about data, for a lovely, self-referential, navel-gazing loop. How are we presenting it? Honestly, our presentation here is nonsense, with graphs made out of data that show no particular results and spreadsheets juxtaposed just for the heck of it. This probably seems like an odd decision to make here of all places, particularly from an artist who makes much hay about the fact that she doesn't put nonsense text, binary, or even musical notation into her work.  It is there as a commentary on Deming's quote, to act as a caveat. The artful rearrangement of the data into pretty but meaningless patterns reminds us that data is only useful if we know how to analyze it well. If we don't, at best it is noise, and at worst it can lead us to conclude that ice cream causes drowning.* The Deming quote is pithy, but the truth is always more complicated.

This print is relevant for many situations, whether encouraging good decision-making at work or screaming at politicians and talking heads on the news. It is available in two sizes, 8" x 10" and 11" x 14" (matted dimensions) for $35 and $45 respectively.

*This is a famous example of "correlation does not imply causation." As ice cream sales increase, so do drowning deaths. Turns out both are just more common the hotter it gets. 

New Product - "Take Care of Yourself"

By Terri

The news is horrible. We're all in danger of succumbing to outrage fatigue. Hang this on your wall to remind yourself to take the steps necessary to stay sane and keep fighting.

How It Came To Be:

This is not actually the print we had originally planned for February,* but Ariela made this because it was something she needed to hear herself, plus she was somewhat creatively burnt out. Thus creating this print was also an act of self-care.

The print is riotously colorful, because it needs to be happy to remind others to be happy. All of the activities listed require relatively little money, because Ariela wanted them to be widely accessible. Yes, we're aware that if you are poor enough, they're not all accessible. We're also aware that making a high-end art print that is aware of this limitation is somewhat ironic, but artists need to eat. We should not be cutting our own bottom line out from under ourselves to further our commitment to social justice.**

Self-care is not selfish. You are precious. And you cannot take care of others or fight for what you believe well if you are run-down and burnt out. This is a long haul kinda thing and burning up in a blaze of self-sacrifice at the beginning isn't the way to go.

The print is available in two sizes: 8" x 10" and 11" x 14" (matted dimensions) for $30 and $45 respectively. $5 from the sale of each print will be donated to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), who are currently doing some amazing work supporting refugees trying to come to this country.

*To be honest, it's not even the second print scheduled for this month. We've both been overwhelmed and burnt out since the election. Overwhelmed and burnt out artists and their wranglers edit their production calendars like sensible people.

**In addition, when you cut the bottom out of your own bottom line, you also cut the bottom out from other artists, too. So making a charitable print and taking a loss on it might cause people to buy your thing rather than someone else's who cannot actually afford to take a loss. Which is why it is good artist practice to encourage others to price themselves properly, even when starting out.

New Product: Police Box Mizrach (מזרח טרדיס)

by Terri

Have you been searching for the right piece of art to indicate your love of a certain Doctor? No matter which one is yours, his iconic Police Box can guide your prayers in the right direction.

How it came to be:

Since the Jewish diasporas began in 8th-6th century BCE, Jews have been turning towards Jerusalem and the site of the Temple Mount there to pray. Much of the diaspora has sent Jews westward of Israel, and thus that means facing east.* Typically a synagogue will put the aron (cabinet containing the Torah scrolls) on the eastern wall to remind the congregants which direction to face during prayer. But in a home, especially modern apartments which don't always have windows in the right places, intuiting which direction is east can be difficult.

Thus a decorative, yet functional piece of art came into existence - the mizrach/מזרח.** Usually containing the Hebrew word, it is a pretty thing that you put on the eastern wall to let you know which way to face while praying.*** Many of them feature pictures of Jerusalem, for the obvious reason.

Ariela had been wanting to do a geeky mizrach for a while but was stymied as to how. Inspiration struck in a most unexpected form: at a shiva minyan, one of the mourners was wearing a Karen Hallion t-shirt, and it suddenly occurred to Ariela that perhaps a certain Police Box-shaped object might visit Jerusalem.

The Police Box Mizrach will be available in two sizes: 8" x 10" and 11" x 14" (matted dimensions) for $30 and $45 respectively.

*Of course now we can live in really cold climates, and are often more northeast than actually due east. Someday you can ask me about shenanigans involving prayer in Poland.

**The Hebrew word for east. Pronounced miz (like a married woman keeping her maiden name) rakh (cheerleading RAH with that guttural sound at the end)

***Of course, it doesn't have to be the eastern wall. Our friend Liz embroidered the Hebrew word tzafon/צפון (north) with a decorative border and framed it. You can find east if you know due north. Pedantry can be fun.

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.