A Few Announcements

By Terri

Have a photo of the Tuileries Gardens. You deserve it.

Well, it’s been a year, hasn’t it?

We haven’t released any new products this year, but we did manage to bring a nice selection of prints, stickers and originals to the Chicon 8 art show. We even sold the original Lady Astronaut painting! And we do appreciate those of you who have been steadily making online purchases. It’s kept a nice stream of income coming our way, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Which brings us to the first announcement - while our shipping prices have remained stable over the last several years, the actual cost of postage and supplies have gone up sharply. Inflation, it’s a thing! So in the coming year, we’ll be raising our shipping prices. Stickers ordered on their own will still be shipped for free, untracked. Everything else will see a price hike for shipping.

Speaking of shipping, the second announcement. Ariela will be moving house in the next couple of weeks. That means the bulk of our extant stock, not to mention the supplies to make new stock, will all be in boxes. Terri keeps some stock in Seattle, but not enough for most orders. We will be suspending order fulfillment until February 1. You’ll still be able to make purchases, but we won’t be shipping them out until 2/1/23. This gives Ariela enough time to unpack everything in her brand new studio. Think of this shipping hiatus as the ability to give a present to your future self.

As for the third announcement, it concerns awards eligibility. Neither of us are eligible for a Hugo nomination this year. To be honest, this is somewhat of a relief. The 2023 Worldcon is controversial at best, and don’t get Terri started from a SMOF perspective on it.

2022 has been one hecking chonk of a year, and we look forward to some new projects upcoming in 2023!

Good Riddance 2020

by Ariela & Terri

Chibi Ariela, sporting a new, floofy green dress holds a closed champagne bottle, saying “Champagne is not the right beverage for this moment.” Chibi Terri in her regular gear proffers an uncapped bottle of bitters from which flames are spurting, saying “How about with a drop of ‘essence of dumpster fire?’”

2020 has been a trashfire by all accounts. Geek Calligraphy has been very quiet this year because, in addition to the disasters playing out on the national and global stages, Ariela suffered a significant personal loss this year and her emotional life for the bulk of the year was in shambles. She was in no condition to be producing art and Terri suddenly found herself in the position of having to provide significant emotional support to a best friend across an ocean in the middle of a global pandemic.

We’re in the process of recovery, but before we get back to producing new art prints Ariela is clearing a significant backlog of commission work. We hope to come back in 2021 with new art for you. In the meanwhile, we join the rest of the world in bidding 2020 a vehement goodbye.

There is a medieval liturgical poem that ends each stanza with the line תכל שנה וקללותיה, “let the old year die, and all of its curses with it.” That feels quite apropos at the moment. The last stanza, however, ends תחל שנה וברכותיה, “let the new year begin, and all of its blessings with it.” Here’s hoping for a better year in 2021.