A few months ago, during my trip to Chattanooga, TN that was part-work and part-visiting one of my best friends from high school, I was browsing in a cute little gift boutique, Blue Skies, when I found these funky greeting cards:
These cards are designed by Anahata Katkin, a collage artist who has been creating cool art journals since she was in 3rd grade. Together with her mom, they started a greeting card company, PaPaYa!, which is now sold in 7 countries all around the world. I like the collage-y style of the cards, where some have a kind of ethnic feel - asian or indian-inspired patterns, and then a use of lace, glitter, and cloth texture. Funky. She has a blog, too, which had some really cool images and inspiration.
In a drastic departure from that girly style of collage art, while in Tennessee, I also happened upon Hatch Show Print, an old print shop that has churned out cool rock posters for some time.
Now I actually already mentioned this place in a previous post, but at the time I didn't get a chance to scan these "postcards" which I stupidly bought for $2 each:
As you can see, these "postcards" are really just cut up pieces of posters and test prints that ended up on the cutting room floor, swept up, printed on the back, labeled "postcards," organized in a turning postcard rack at the front counter, and snatched up by people like me, who'd pay for art room scraps. All in the name of art. Oh well, I still think they're cool. The letters printed on during the letterpress process create a kind of impression in the card stock, and then each layer of paint that is applied adds a bit of texture to the stock as well. Cool effects you can't exactly recreate in Illustrator or Photoshop. (Well, at least I don't know how to just yet.).
And there you have it, my tribute to creative inspiration in Tennessee.
