Almost 20 years ago, I made some Halloween costumes and we staged a photo. We grew up with the tradition of everyone we knew sending holiday cards with a photo of the family with matching sweaters. It’s just what you did. So, I sent greetings to all of our friends and family, but I realized that staged holiday photo just wasn’t us.

So we put our Halloween photo in our holiday cards. People got such a kick out of it that we did it the next year. And soon it was a new family tradition. A few weekends before Halloween every year we transform our basement photo studio for the day into a makeshift set and we come up with a story we can capture in a single shot. The theme is in the works for months and is always top secret. (Many people have tried to get us to spill the beans.)

This was one of the very first we shot.

We have a few rules.

• We never have outside help; the scene has to be something we can do with our own equipment and a self timer or a sound-activated shutter.
• We try to capture as much as we possibly can in the camera so the Photoshop edits are as minimal as possible.
• We never go for “replica” or exact costumes, but always what I can piece together to make it close enough to be instantly recognizable. I reuse pieces all the time.
• We don’t use AI.
• The scene has to have a story that you can see in a single shot.
• There are always Easter Eggs.

If you don’t want to read about the spoilers of “how it’s made” you should just skip over the rest of this post. But I thought I would tell you about some of the Easter Eggs in this year’s photo.

Yellow: Stanley, of course. We shot the photo of Stanley in the living room while we tossed kibbles in his mouth. This was the hardest part of the whole photo! It took us way longer to get a shot because he moves so fast. We realized that none of our cameras had a fast enough shutter to capture that mid-chomp face. We were trying to get something where he was “grinning” but not all teeth. By the time we got done, he curled up and took a really big nap because he worked so hard sitting and waiting for the kibble toss.

Aqua: My “proton stream gun” is a photography light instrument and part of our vacuum cleaner with the end of the hose tucked in to my belt. I was supposed to be wearing a big backpack but the straps blocked the ghost patch and so we just left it out.

Green: Andy’s face is slobbered with about half a bottle of aloe vera gel.

Purple: Our ghost trap is made from a kleenex box covered in duct tape, some official looking warning stickers, the lids to a couple of bottles and some pieces to our outdoor sprinkler system. We felt like this was such an iconic prop that we set up one of our studio lights as a spotlight using some black foil paper to make a focused light.

Blue: This is an extra power pack for one of our lights. It looked techhie so we just popped it into the background. It also helped mark where my back foot should be because I was the one hitting the self-timer button on the camera and running into place.

Orange: The tools on my belt included a knitting needle gauge and an angle marking ruler. Andy has a USB cable.

Red: The costumes in the movie had elbow pads, which we made from elastic bands that were leftover from part of Andy’s gear from his instant replay job.

I found the coveralls online because I wanted ones that matched and Andy is 6’5″ so it’s hard to find things like that which are tall enough for him.

The floor you see is our basement floor. We discovered that the basement walls were too light so there are a whole bunch of black tablecloths that I use for art shows clipped to the floor joists to make a black curtain.

You don’t end up being able to see it in the finished photo but the same foam core door we used for the “Andrew Rahn, Private Detective” photo from a few years ago is also in the background. So I guess we are exterminating the ghosts from the detective’s office. We can see it on our big computer before the photo is all compressed down to share on the social media etc.

The ghost patches are duct taped on because we weren’t exactly sure what angles we would each be at and we needed to be able to move them so they were prominent in the shot. We started with them on the arms like in the movie costumes but they were too hard to see.

We did this whole shot with two photos (one of us and one of Stanley) composited together. Our scene was lit with only two lights which are bright strobe lights very carefully aimed with foil baffles. We did it with a 10 second self timer and I ran into position each time while Andy stayed put. We often use a camera gizmo that is triggered by a sound like a clap but we couldn’t get it working this year so we just did it “old school”. We would shoot the photo, look at it on the back of the camera, adjust our positions or expressions and shoot another. I think there were about 30 photos before this one, which we both looked at and instantly said “That’s the shot.”

(I hope if you are like me, you are hearing that theme song in your head right now.)

I originally wrote this post in 2017, but as my holiday show season is starting up again, I thought I would do an update and re-write it with some fresh eyes.

A friend posted a comment on something I wrote on Facebook:

I want to have a booth at a show, but I am nervous that I will not be charming enough. Any tips for being yourself And an introvert and a good salesperson for the crafts you love to make?

What a great question! I am a major introvert. When I say that, I always have students from my classes say “There’s no way you’re an introvert.” but it’s really true. When I am in front of a class, I can turn off the introvert for a while and I enjoy it, but I have a timer and it runs out. I get what I call a “teaching hangover”, especially when I teach in the evenings where I need several hours to unwind and reset before I can sleep or deal with people again. It’s a different feeling than just being tired. I feel prickly and scatterbrained and I crave silence. (It’s a lot like the onset of a migraine now that I think of it.) I need to get that out of my system before I can do anything else. So a class that goes until 9 pm means I will be up until 2 am before I feel like I can relax again. I know that about myself, so I have come up with a lot of ways to make it work.

When you’re an introvert, showing your art at a show is pretty much you having to be “on” for 8 or 10 hours straight, which is so hard to do. The reason people come to art shows is because they are interested in handmade items and they are interested in meeting the artists that make them. That means you. I’ve written before about how that interaction with the artist can make all the difference in both positive and negative ways. So here are a few ways I deal with being an introvert and surviving a long show day and making sure I am being the best ambassador for my art.

Meet your neighbors

One of the first things I do is try to meet the people that are set up on either side of me. I’ve made some really great booth neighbor friends over the years. It makes it feel so much less awkward to borrow a sharpie or masking tape from them. Chances are good that everything is going to be crowded (because it always is) and you are going to be encroaching on each other’s space in some way. That’s a lot easier to tolerate from a friend when you are crawling under their table to find your water bottle or their customers are standing in the way of your display and chatting.

Don’t forget fuel

It’s tempting to get a giant latte loaded with sugar and figure that caffeinated energy will carry you through your introvertness. And that works to a point. But around Hour 3 when you are jittery and the sugar has crashed, your ability to cope with crowds of people is toast. It’s going to be loud and you will get thirsty from talking a lot. Water is good. I am not really excited about plain water, so I drink a lot of tea. I have decided that nuts, apples & cheese are pretty much the perfect show snack. Cut everything up into small pieces. Stash it in a container under the table. You don’t want anything that makes your fingers messy and you want to be able to eat it in a couple of bites. You might get a break, but you might not. And I don’t know about you, but if I am hungry, I am even less interested in talking to people and they stress me out more.

Be present

The simplest version of this one that I’ve heard is “don’t sit down”, but that’s not realistic to be on your feet all day. It’s really tempting to make a “nest” in the back of your booth so you can be out of the way, but it’s so easy to disengage with customers that way and get absorbed in your phone. A tall stool or chair is the absolute best investment! I have this one from IKEA. That way you can literally sit and not have to be on your feet all day, but you are still at eye level with the people who are shopping. You can be present and available but still relaxed. Also think about something to do with your hands that’s not looking at your phone. I always bring something so I’m actively making something (knitting, stitching, drawing). It doesn’t need to be something that you sell, but it helps reinforce that you are a maker and I think it’s a great conversation starter. People can’t resist asking what you are working on.

Back when I wrote this original post, I asked my social media followers what their biggest turnoff was when interacting with a seller at a show and almost everyone said sellers who were either absorbed in their phones or who were completely wrapped up talking to someone else in the booth.

Don’t get trapped

This one is about your booth design. It took me a while to figure out that the simple design of “here’s a table with all of my stuff and I stand behind the table” totally makes me feel trapped. I am constantly on display along with my art right in front of all of those people, aka the Introverts Nightmare. I now try to make a booth where I have several places to stand, including out in the aisle. I want to be able to see my things at all times, but I want to be able to move around and not have me or the customer feel like we are watching each other. I think it also helps to wear a nametag so that no matter where I stand people can figure out that I belong to the booth. Some shows really don’t lend themselves to this, but give your design some creative thinking.

I also like to step around to the front of my booth about once an hour and just give everything a fluff. Customers rarely put things back how they found them and I like to move new things to the front of the baskets and just tidy everything up.

Find the story

Ugh. Small talk. Right?

“Let me know if you have any questions.” is a good opening line, but it’s so commonly said that we almost don’t hear it any more. Often the first thing someone says when they walk up to my things is “Pretty fabric” or something like that, so my opening line has become: “Thank you! I design all of these fabrics and have them digitally printed.” At which point they usually look up at me with a confused look on their face (because what I do is unusual) and they ask me a question. “What do you mean digitally printed?” “You designed all of them?” “You can do that?” And now we have a conversation started and it’s the easy conversation. 

It’s easy to talk about what you do because you love it. You wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. You aren’t selling it at that point, you are sharing your love and enthusiasm for it. And that’s a way more fun conversation than “How much is this?” I also print out a card that talks about what’s unusual about my work and I put it in the display so you don’t have to ask me. That’s for the introvert shoppers.

I have actually gotten to where there are some art shows that I really enjoy. I know what to expect, I know I will be having the same small talk conversation all day and I still enjoy it. But that’s taken some practice. Your first few shows are going to be exhausting. Making your booth/strategy work for your personality is going to make you feel more confident and even if it feels a little contrived to come up with an “opening line”, the more you do it, the more natural it becomes and it doesn’t feel that way at all.

Have a break

Get a friend to come. Leave for 5 minutes and go away from the crowd where you can be “off” for a while. Walk outside or even hide in the bathroom. Anything where you can be anonymous for a couple of minutes will give you a little chance to reset. I rarely have someone assist in the booth with me. There is never enough room and you tend to talk to that person instead of customers. But someone who can drop by for 10 minutes is the best gift you will get all day. It’s always the last thing I think to organize, but it’s so important. This person doesn’t need to know how to do anything more than say “The artist stepped away for just a minute and will be back soon.”

My sister was here for the weekend and we had no big plans so since it was a crazy hot day we decided to try some ice dyeing. A great day for melting ice! I had a collection of random dyes from a whole bunch of previous projects that needed to be used up so we got a collection of t-shirts and napkins and set up some ice dyeing in the driveway.

Although I have taught dozens of dye classes, I have never actually done ice dyeing before. It seems pretty straight-forward, but I decided to look up some instructions to make sure there wasn’t anything I was missing. The first thing I noticed is that there are WILDLY different instructions for ice dyeing. I am not going to link to any of the ones I’ve read because I am not sure any of them actually work.

• One said to dissolve 2 cups of soda ash in a gallon of warm water; the next one said 1/4 c per gallon.
• One said to let it sit for 24 hours after the ice was melted; another said to rinse them right away.
• One said that the dye had to go on top of the ice; one said it had to go underneath. (I can’t see how this possibly could make any difference.)

I went with what seemed like the most likely thing to work based on what I know about these dyes. So we soaked some things in soda ash, crumpled them up on mesh drying racks and various things from the garage, covered them with ice and sprinkled on some dye. I had 3 different reds/pinks, 3 different yellows, navy, blue, purple and two blacks. It was almost 90 degrees so we let them sit and bake out in the sun for about 6 hours. I brought everything in and loaded it into the washer. I rinsed some loose dye off of a couple of pieces, but I didn’t do a big rinse step, which was probably my mistake.

(Note, I don’t need any crowd-sourced dye lessons here. I’ve taught with these dyes a lot and I know exactly what I’d do differently another time.)

One of the cool things about ice dyeing is the tendency of colors to “fracture” and separate out into their components. I’ve seen examples where they do all kinds of unpredictable color shifts. Some of the dye companies sell dyes that do this on purpose. It just so happens that the majority of colors I happened to have (purple, black, blue, red) all blended, shifted or broke apart to make purple. Because basically everything we made turned out purple. And to compound that, a lot of the dye did not complete the chemical reaction where it locks into the fiber (I think it was very slowed down by the ice) so a lot of loose dye made it’s way into every crack and crevasse and filled in everything with purple.

Some of the pieces are pretty; my sister and her hubby got a couple of cool purple t-shirts. But it didn’t really wow me in any way. We could have gotten the same results just pouring the dye over the pieces. Some of them are just ugly. I am going to think about how I can overdye them or maybe try some glue batik to make some purple and black Halloween themed things.

Some friends at a local software company have started a new podcast about AI and how to use AI in your business. As an artist, I am pretty solidly anti-AI because most generative AI is stealing art and content from creators. I recently had to move my websites to a completely different hosting company because the one I was using was allowing my sites to get bombarded by AI bots scraping and stealing the content and they wanted me to PAY for that extra bandwidth and visitor traffic. Paying for the bots to steal my stuff.

But like I do with a lot of frustrating things that happen in my life, I process it through making art. So, meet MLEM. That business I mentioned before wanted to have a mascot for their new podcast and instead of promoting the kind of AI that steals art, they decided to commission an artist (me!) to make some real art that they could use as images to go with their content.

The paper I chose for covering the box is a handmade lokta paper with a metallic silver surface. I also added a few details with paper which is screenprinted silver on black and a pop of orange inside. I wanted to keep this piece using as much fiber/paper as possible and not metal, which would be an obvious choice to make a robot.

I started with the treads on the base and made a paper tread, filled with rollers made from strips of wool felt. The rivets on the cabinet door are stacked and stitched sequins.

I embedded magnets several place in the robot so that the doors could open and close easily. Here’s one in the inside of the cabinet so you can put something inside. I also added a door to the back and the top of the head so I can get inside to the inner workings because one of the big feature of this little guy was that I wanted to make it posable. So the head pivots, the eyes rotate and the arms can go up and down.

I embroidered a sashiko-style panel for the front with sequins.

The arms are attached just like a jointed teddy bear with elastic and a button inside. So they rotate up and down. I made a cabinet door on the back as well as the front so I could access those bits and adjust the tightness if I needed to.

I made two kumihimo cords to make the cables that attach the head and the body. I happened to have some awesome metallic silver yarn leftover from another project so they are shiny just like the paper. The “ears” are large covered buttons and the antenna on top is a paper straw with a vintage glass button at the top.

I really wanted the eyes to shine so they are made from two bike reflectors with a sequin glued to the front. They pivot so I can make him have different expressions looking up, down or crosseyed.

It was a really fun project to work on! I was inspired by vintage robots from the Jetsons or Forbidden Planet, but I wanted this one to have a small head and big hands to represent the brainless grabbing that many AI bots do. Why is it named MLEM? It’s an acronym for Modern Logic Engaging Marketingbot. And it’s the sound your dog makes trying to get peanut butter off the roof of their mouth, which makes me laugh.

You can see more photos in my Gallery post about this piece.