BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com

20 Jun 11 - 07:13 PM (#3173574)
Subject: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Hi, all! Just thought I'd make this announcement here... Back on April 1, I dove in and created a new online store for selling tee-shirts and other swag with pictures and quips that I think up:

Chemer(i)GONS.

It has a "mixed" theme of A) creativity (mostly writing, but also some drawing/painting) and B) Disability Rights.

That may seem to be an odd mix to anyone who is not living in my head, but to me, those two things are intimately linked, in that when you're living in a world that doesn't quite fit you, you have to approach everything creatively.

The store's name comes from a portmanteau of "Chimera" (a Fabulous monster / wild imaginings) and "Hexagon" (which, in a sci-fi inside joke is the shape "that everything will come in, in The Future."

For the past couple of months, it's been running along at a hobby-like pace (and mostly, I've been the one buying my own products... But I'm thinking of putting in more time and effort into it, in the coming weeks, and hope to have several new products up for sale each week, on a schedule.

If you good 'Catters have any ideas for music humor, or quips from your own life that I could try to illustrate, let me know!

---

20 Jun 11 - 10:43 PM (#3173637)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

I love those, CU!! Congrats and good luck with it. I hope you are posting about on other related boards, too, plus using twitter, etc.

---

20 Jun 11 - 11:00 PM (#3173640)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: Mrrzy

Love Zazzle, will certainly check your stuff out, and how fun! Bully for you!

---

20 Jun 11 - 11:02 PM (#3173641)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: Mrrzy

LOL! Reality check: Your flight of fancy has been delayed...

---

20 Jun 11 - 11:31 PM (#3173649)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Kat -- I have neither a twitter account, nor Facebook.

Facebook scares me, frankly, because of its cavelier attitude toward privacy and anonymity (as much as I hate to admit it, I am in a somewhat vulnerable position, because I'm perceived as vulnerable). But I'm considering Twitter.

Mrrzy -- Ha! 'Reality Check' *snerk*

next Monday is Helen Keller's birthday; so that week, I want to post stuff with things she wrote as an adult, in support of pacifism and women's suffrage.

---

20 Jun 11 - 11:38 PM (#3173650)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

I know what you mean about FB, CU. I am very careful on there. I also started a FB acct. for my shop at Etsy, but have not done a thing with it. Have you looked at Etsy? It's a very supportive, wonderful community of incredibly creative people like you, Alice in Montana and others.

I haven't fully utilized twitter, but will be doing so when my book gets published. It is easy and I *think* can be fairly anon.

I look forward to the Helen Keller quotes. My sister acted as her in the Miracle Worker in high school. We were all practising signing with her at the dinner table to help her remember for the part. It was intense and she received standing ovations. Ironically, she has been losing her sight over the past few years from too much O2 as a preemie.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack your thread.:-)

---

21 Jun 11 - 12:45 AM (#3173663)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Yeah... I basically want to get away from The Miracle Worker image of Ms. Keller -- in her day, she was considered one of the most important writers and activists on the Social Justice scene. ...She ended up saying a whole heck of a lot more than "wa-wa".

Also, she never really learned Sign. Just the Manual Alphabet, in part, because her family had been influenced by Alexander Graham Bell, who wanted to keep Deaf people from communicating too much with each other ('Cause then, they might fall in love with each other, and have Deaf babies)... But that's a whole 'nother rant....

The quote(s) I'll be doing, when I decide on which ones, will come from this article:

Why Men Need Woman Suffrage, by Helen Keller -- The New York Call, October 17, 1913

---

21 Jun 11 - 04:30 AM (#3173720)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: John MacKenzie

Great stuff CU. I just love your 'My life is not your fashion statement' tee.
The proliferation of 'Support ribbons' as I call them, seems to be just that, a fashion statement. We even have tartan ribbons for some cause or other, here in Scotland.
Mind you, I blame you Americans with your yellow ribbons, for starting it all ;-)
Good luck with your enterprise.

---

21 Jun 11 - 05:43 AM (#3173740)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: gnu

I'm with John on all counts.

---

21 Jun 11 - 01:26 PM (#3173989)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

You are right, of course, CU. I meant we practised the alphabet with her. And, yes, I've read more about Keller which shows she went way beyond that portrayal.

Excellent paper. I esp. liked this: We shall not see the end of capitalism and the triumph of democracy until men and women work together in the solving of their political, social and economic problems.

---

21 Jun 11 - 11:25 PM (#3174271)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

John and gnu -- Thanks. It was right after I'd posted my "Flamethrower" tee that Zazzle gave me links to tees from another store with Cerebral Palsy themes -- like "Cerebral Palsy Stinks!" (With a picture of a skunk with a clothespin on its nose) and "Stamp out Cerebral Palsy!" (With an elephant stamping on a furry creature of some sort).

And since I have cerebral palsy (and I wouldn't be the person I am without it), it felt, in my gut, like the designers of those shirts wanted to stamp me out. ...Anyway, another set of those designs had a bunch of "awareness ribbon" designs, including green for CP.

So the next day, I tried to do a little research into the CP awareness campaign. ... Never did find its origin, but I did find a page with the all the different colors, and what diseases/conditions they stood for. ...Turns out, most colors stand for several different problems at once, which kind of defeats the purpose, and sends it into the realm of the ridiculous. And that's when the inspiration for that tee began.

... Personally, I have a different memory of "awareness ribbons" (the yellow ribbon for soldiers was a late-comer, as I recall, borrowing on a the nuclear arms protests and the AIDS protests of the 1980s). Like most things, I think it started out from a sincere place, and then, when it was seen as a quick-and-easy way to get noticed, it got corrupted.

That may be the subject for another discussion, at another time.

Kat -- Yes, she was a wonderful writer.

---

26 Jun 11 - 06:22 PM (#3176883)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

I finished my Helen Keller Quote Tee-shirt (Just in time for her birthday, tomorrow -- she'd be 131 yrs. old!).

---

26 Jun 11 - 08:52 PM (#3176929)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

Most excellent and I love your illustration to go with it!

---

26 Jun 11 - 10:58 PM (#3176960)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Thanks, Kat!

Yes, when I first encountered that editorial last year, that one passage made me laugh out loud, and I knew I had to illustrate it. It's such a vivid, and energetic metaphor...

But it took me until this last week to figure out how to portray the image of "old ideas" that weren't fixed to a particular period of history, and thus, be dated in six months, or make people feel that the quote applies to others, but not to them...

---

26 Jun 11 - 11:40 PM (#3176966)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

You did a great job of exactly that.

BTW, I had a similar reaction when you wrote above about that other site and the "stamping" out, etc. It seems they mean well, but there are better ways to say such, imo.

---

27 Jun 11 - 12:02 PM (#3177210)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Kat -- Thanks! I just finished fiddling with the design to fit in onto a coffee mug, with the illustration on both sides, and the full quote split into two. (It takes at least several days for me to come up with each drawing, so it behooves me to try and stick each one on as many products as makes sense (and not everyone wants a tee).

I think I shall respectfully disagree with you on whether they mean well. As someone who grew up with a visible disability, I see the emphasis on "Cure, first" as an attitude of fear and bigotry... That my place is to be securely cared for in a hospital until I am "fit" for life in the public world.

And even with disorders, conditions, and diseases that do cause suffering (CP is not among them), people need to be accepted as fully human with full human rights, now, and focusing all public attention on "cure," through walk-a-thons, telethons, and badges pushes all that attention and effort twenty years or more into the future.

And, especially with that particular store, it looks to me like they didn't even research any of the conditions they were sticking on their products any further than a quick check of what color the design should be. So I think the only thing they really care about is hopping onto a trend in an effort to fill their store with products people will buy, based on a sense of pity.

(and another design set I'm mulling over is something that conveys the link between pitying someone and bullying them, but that's a fine line, and tricky.

---

27 Jun 11 - 07:20 PM (#3177440)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: CapriUni

Kat -- No, I don't think I could fit the actual quote on a bumper sticker (Words were so much more fashionable, in the previous century). But I may go for a gist -- maybe something like:

"Old ideas are no match for questioning minds."

But even that's too wordy.

I am thinking of sticking it onto a tote bag, though.
---
The thing about pitying: it's a form of bullying (in my experience) because it frames your own emotional state as being more important than the other person's actual experience.

Sympathy and kindness are different -- if someone who is hurting asks for help, or a patient ear, or a warm meal, and you respond, that's an action -- and an interaction.

But I've never seen anyone actually ask to be pitied -- pity never accomplished anything. ...I've never seen pity in any circumstance where it wasn't self-centered.

---

27 Jun 11 - 07:32 PM (#3177445)
Subject: RE: BS: CapriUni has a new store at Zazzle.com
From: katlaughing

...it frames your own emotional state as being more important than the other person's actual experience.

Yes!

But I've never seen anyone actually ask to be pitied...

I have a certain relative who doesn't outright ask for it, but sure lays on the pity party and expects consolation. They have finally learned the rest of us won't participate and they are actually doing much better.:-)

I am sure you will come up with some way to convey Keller's thoughts on the subject. Yes, words were so much more in fashion. I have my granddad's old dictionary set: four "tomes" each one 3.5" thick and 12" tall. Lots of old words lost for lack of popular use.

---