We’re in the quietest week of the year now, when many people have time off and those that don’t, are often just biding their time. It’s a good time to look back and take stock, as well as look ahead and dream.
Here are a few highlights from our year:
The year started with the beautiful WinterWolf collaboration that I spoke of in the last post. It set the tone for a new level of artistry on all counts. These photos also generated a wider audience for our work.
In March we did another photo collaboration, this one with Laura Dark, a very talented person that we met on Model Mayhem. She used Organic Armor to accessorize a shoot of Enigma Fashions.
We completed our most elaborate cosplay costume yet in April, Tali from Mass Effect. Commissioned by Amanda, aka ToxicNeon, the undergarments were made by KLM Design and all the armor by us.
In May we traveled to Glen Rock, PA for our 2nd Spoutwood May Day Fairy Festival. We had a great booth location between friends and good sales. It’s always a lovely time with the fairy people.
We also had a booth at the 1st Asheville con Fanaticon.
In June we tried a new show – Con Carolinas. It’s a small scifi con in Charlotte, NC. There we met several awesome peeps including Allegra Torres, aka the Chainmail Chick, and Alan Welch of Reverie Realm. A wonderful photo shoot followed at Keith Bailey’s brand new ElfLight Studio, generating a set of photos that have helped us tremendously.
We traveled to NYC and hooked up with Gothic Renaissance, a clothing/costume shop in the Chelsea area, the beginning of a fruitful collaboration. We also delivered several custom pieces to Jonathan’s Flowers.
In July we tried the local hipster craft show The Big Crafty for the 1st time. It was a steamy Sunday but our focus on creating lower-priced items like the steampunk chokers and hairbands paid off (we found that Asheville is not a pasties crowd though).
In July we also worked on a set of three belly dance sets for the amazing Neon and the dance troop Venus Uprising.
There are a lot of pasties fans on the west coast! In August we traveled to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Temple of Visions, a visionary art gallery in downtown LA, welcomed us. Our daughter Radhika is a big part of that creative place. It was exciting to see the vibrant culture coalescing there.
Then we drove up to San Francisco to connect with our core tribe of customers, Burners. We were part of our 3rd Prepare for the Playa. What a wild time! We love you guys.
September brought work on two big custom projects, the Anubis dog armor, and the steampunk cameo tails. I also posted my first blog series – DIY Halloween costumes, which was a great learning experience. I’m collecting tutorials and images for 2011 already, and I’m thinking of compiling the 2010 info somehow as well (ideas welcome on how to do that).
In October we tried our 1st belly dance show, TribOriginal, right here in Western NC. It was a great connect the dots for us. Again we met some cool people that we hope to work with in the future. Big thanks to the amazing Onca for welcoming us there.
There was a big rush of Halloween related orders and then we moved onto November. Our last show of the year was another new one, The Upstate Steampunk Extravaganza. This is a new event in South Carolina, our 1st steampunk con. Paul and Lynette attended it, finishing a pair of extra tall tophats just the night before, as well as a new corset.
Lynette has been one of the best things about 2010. Her enthusiasm, new ideas and skills are a great match for us. And her other half Pete is also a great graphic artist.
December has been pretty quiet. We’re dreaming and drawing ideas for bigger things in 2011. We want to do more collaboration with dancers and performers.
We want to manifest a couple of ideas that have been bouncing around for a while — an Egyptian themed belly dance set, and a Ringmaster of the Underworld costume.
What dreams can we help you manifest?!