1. This is (one of the many reasons) I so love The Sartorialist blog. Such a lovely photo, entitled "Different Lives, Milan". Love.
2. I hope, in all aspects of my life, to be the girl with the red coat and the yellow umbrella.
Best,
Amy
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Different Lives
1. This is (one of the many reasons) I so love The Sartorialist blog. Such a lovely photo, entitled "Different Lives, Milan". Love.
2. I hope, in all aspects of my life, to be the girl with the red coat and the yellow umbrella.
Best,
Amy
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The Ubiquitous New Year's post...
It's hard, really, to put into words what this last year has meant to me. And to my family as well. 2007 started out so, so horribly. My sister and brother-in-law were going through something very painful. I was lost and felt like I had no idea where I was supposed to go, what I was supposed to do. And then a course of events happens and one after the other, you begin to realize that it took the agony and the loss and the disappointment to bring the hope and the joy and the freedom. I am doing things I never dreamed I would ever do. Doors have opened that I never even knew existed. And the most amazing part is that while I am relishing in my God-I-am-obviously-not-as-good-at-doing-things-on-my-own-as-I-thought-please-take-over state of mind, I am getting to sit and watch as my sister is doing EXACTLY what she always dreamed of doing.
Katie has talked about opening her own performing arts academy for, well, I feel fairly comfortable saying the last twenty years. For two decades we have talked about what it would be like, drawn floorplans for the dream buildings and so on and so on. And she's finally doing it. And it's amazing. And I'm so proud. It's an incredible thing, a blessing really, when you get to see someone you love do something she's really good at--like how ridiculously patient she is with children--but then you get to see her do things you never even guessed she was good at, great at even--like building a website, and managing about 5,000 things all at once.
And so I'm so excited for what 2008 will bring. I really don't have any idea, and I find that kind of thrilling. I didn't make resolutions this year. But I did make goals. One of them is to really grow and expand my own business. And one of them is to make some serious progress in getting Katie and Michael further along in their adoption process. To start it off, I have added some new products to the shop:
They are sold individually, and as a set. The set comes packaged like this:
I'm trying it out. If it's successful, I might make some batches of some of the other prints. We'll see.
I hope that 2008 brings lovely, amazing and inspiring things to you as well.
xo,
Amy
Katie has talked about opening her own performing arts academy for, well, I feel fairly comfortable saying the last twenty years. For two decades we have talked about what it would be like, drawn floorplans for the dream buildings and so on and so on. And she's finally doing it. And it's amazing. And I'm so proud. It's an incredible thing, a blessing really, when you get to see someone you love do something she's really good at--like how ridiculously patient she is with children--but then you get to see her do things you never even guessed she was good at, great at even--like building a website, and managing about 5,000 things all at once.
And so I'm so excited for what 2008 will bring. I really don't have any idea, and I find that kind of thrilling. I didn't make resolutions this year. But I did make goals. One of them is to really grow and expand my own business. And one of them is to make some serious progress in getting Katie and Michael further along in their adoption process. To start it off, I have added some new products to the shop:
They are sold individually, and as a set. The set comes packaged like this:
I'm trying it out. If it's successful, I might make some batches of some of the other prints. We'll see.
I hope that 2008 brings lovely, amazing and inspiring things to you as well.
xo,
Amy
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
new print in the shop
I hope that you all had a lovely holiday season. I personally, had quite a nice little Christmas, and a very relaxing New Years and am ready for the fresh start that the new year brings. I'll post a little more on that in a bit, but for now just wanted to let you know that there is a new print in the shop. This started as a request from a lovely woman who is in the process of adopting her daughter from Vietnam. But I thought I would make it available to everyone, and so here it is:
It's quite similar to the original Family print, although (as you might notice) this one features a family with a daughter. Here is what I wrote a while back about the original concept of the Family print:
"I knew fairly early into the project that I wanted to somehow incorporate the lines from e. e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me". And I also knew that I wanted to somehow do an illustration of a family that was based upon this same idea. I'd had this image of a family tied together by their hearts for some time, but it took several different goes at it before I finally arrived at the end product. It was important to me that race or ethnicity not be suggested by the illustration. That is why I chose to leave out their facial features, and why I stuck to a neutral color palate. My goal, really, was to do an illustration of a family that could be any ethnicity, or several ethnicities combined--that the one similarity between them would be their love.
When Katie first proposed the idea of she and Michael adopting internationally, she said it to me as though she was asking if I would love this child the same as a biological child. My answer to that would be "of course" -- a million times "of course". I am sure that this is a question that is asked among every family who makes the decision to adopt internationally. But while it is true that I will never be able to look at their child and point out Katie's eyes or Michael's red hair, I am quite certain that attachment and love and a sense of an emotional connection will be no different at all.
I think that what Katie was really asking is something that we all ask ourselves--something that is so completely universal. I think we all have those moments when we just want someone to tell us that we are good enough. I do at least. Or did I just divulge too much of my own insecurity? I doubt it.
Katie has been watching a new show on TLC where they have given children video cameras and allowed them to document their lives. There was a young girl on one of the episodes who had been adopted into a interracial family. When speaking of her family she said "I don't think it matters who you are with, as long as you're loved". Perfect."
Happy New Year!
xo,
Amy
It's quite similar to the original Family print, although (as you might notice) this one features a family with a daughter. Here is what I wrote a while back about the original concept of the Family print:
"I knew fairly early into the project that I wanted to somehow incorporate the lines from e. e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me". And I also knew that I wanted to somehow do an illustration of a family that was based upon this same idea. I'd had this image of a family tied together by their hearts for some time, but it took several different goes at it before I finally arrived at the end product. It was important to me that race or ethnicity not be suggested by the illustration. That is why I chose to leave out their facial features, and why I stuck to a neutral color palate. My goal, really, was to do an illustration of a family that could be any ethnicity, or several ethnicities combined--that the one similarity between them would be their love.
When Katie first proposed the idea of she and Michael adopting internationally, she said it to me as though she was asking if I would love this child the same as a biological child. My answer to that would be "of course" -- a million times "of course". I am sure that this is a question that is asked among every family who makes the decision to adopt internationally. But while it is true that I will never be able to look at their child and point out Katie's eyes or Michael's red hair, I am quite certain that attachment and love and a sense of an emotional connection will be no different at all.
I think that what Katie was really asking is something that we all ask ourselves--something that is so completely universal. I think we all have those moments when we just want someone to tell us that we are good enough. I do at least. Or did I just divulge too much of my own insecurity? I doubt it.
Katie has been watching a new show on TLC where they have given children video cameras and allowed them to document their lives. There was a young girl on one of the episodes who had been adopted into a interracial family. When speaking of her family she said "I don't think it matters who you are with, as long as you're loved". Perfect."
Happy New Year!
xo,
Amy
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