Equal Parts Work and Play

While researching web design and bothering every person I have ever know that has been even loosely connected to website building, I visited my friend Isabel Greenberg's online portfolio, only to stumble upon my own face in comic form!

When I traveled across the country, I was delighted to connect with this lifelong British bestie—on a trip through the States, herself—for a chance to share all the American joys I've come to love. This would include hiking, log cabin camping (S'MORES), large novelty foods, and a lot of driving. And as a pseudo work/play project, she ended up turning it into a little Zine diary (I'm the one in the glasses, of course):

Isabel is a fantastic graphic novelist and illustrator: she's amazing, she's talented, she's a wonderful human being, she'll kill me for saying all this, blah blah blah, check her out! She won the Observer Jonathan Cape Graphic Short Story Prize in 2011 for her beautiful story Love in a Very Cold Climate, and her big debut graphic novel, Encyclopedia of Early Earth, is being published simultaneously in England (Jonathan Cape), Canada (Random House), and the US (Little Brown) in 2014.

I don't think I can actually classify this is "Headline News" publicity for Warren Tales, but it's not every day you get to cameo in a comic! Besides, it's Friday...which means very little when you're self employed haha happy weekend, all!

A Warren Tales of Two Cities

I recently (finally) got to make the move up the California coast from San Diego to Gaviota, where I will be spending my time working on website and product design. I am working out of a small studio space out in the beautiful coastal countryside, and am so happy to be mostly settled in at this point.


My plan for the next six months is to:
-Develop a new, all-inclusive website
-Design a 2014 product line of greeting cards, invitations, prints, and calendars
-Produce a 2014 catalog with product samples for distribution
-Build a wholesale client list through store placement opportunities
-Register as an exhibitor at the 2014 National Stationery Show

As I post updates of new designs and accomplishments, I hope you'll share them with your friends, and keep Warren Tales growing into a thriving competitive business. Warren Tales can also be found on Facebook, Pinterest, and Etsy.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Roadyssey & The Sketchbook Project

After such a great experience participating in the Chronicle Project, I couldn't wait to color my hands dirty with the 2013 Sketchbook Project:

 

The Sketchbook Project is a collection of creative works in the form of sketchbooks that are contributed by individuals from around the world. Thousands of people are adding their voice to this project annually. Together, they have formed a library of over 22,000 sketchbooks from over 130 countries and growing.

 

My submission to the project, entitled ROADYSSEY, is an illustrated account of my cross country road trip, during which I drove 13,000 miles through the quiet routes and back roads of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ontario (Canada), Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California — phew!

 

Take a look at the following pictures to see how it turned out, and visit a tour event near you!

Davis Avenue in Brookline Village, Massachusetts

Nation-Wide Wildlife Sightings / Boston, Massachusetts

Boston, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts / Acadia National Park, Maine

 

 White Mountains, New Hampshire / Ticonderoga Vermont—New York

Upstate New York

 Detroit, Michigan / Cleveland, Ohio

Baraboo, Wisconsin & St. Paul, Minnesota / Commentary

Whiting, Indiana & Chicago, Illinois / The Mississippi River

Starved Rock & Matthiessen State Park, Illinois / 

Metropolis, Illinois

Nashville, Tennessee / The Blue Ridge Parkway

The Appalachian Trail / Washington, D.C.

New York City / North Carolina

Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina / St. Augustine, Florida

New Orleans, Louisiana / Houston, Texas

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Arizona / California

In Conclusion / Nation-Wide Road Kill Sightings

The End

Thanks to everyone at the Brooklyn Art House for their endless supply of creativity, patience, and organization.

A Furry Hoppy Two Ears

...That was my attempt at a poor new years joke involving rabbits. I reckon I succeeded. In the poorness, I mean.

A long awaited hello to all!

When I left to see the country at the start of September, I had no idea how my trip was going to turn out, or really even how long it would last. It's amusing, now, to think back to the beginning—driving again for the first time in years, camping and hiking for the first time ever, and slowly getting used to the solitude—and know how little I had seen of what I was soon going to. 

Each of the three months I traveled feel like almost entirely different trips: split between the North, the Deep South, and the South West; the accents, the landscape, and the food. It was truly an experience of an "endless summer," and of a never ending sense of freedom on the open road (the cliche is in fact still alarmingly accurate). While, in reality, it was a brilliantly radiant endless autumn, as I followed the fair weather and changing foliage for the entire 13,000 miles. Most importantly, I had the luxury of time, so I chose to stay entirely off the interstate and see the country from the inside—a decision I will be grateful for for the rest of my life.

In the end, I traveled for a total of one hundred days: through two countries and thirty-one states; through two family trees; through a (narrowly avoided) hurricane; through a presidential campaign and election; through every song ever played on public radio; and through every thought that ever popped into my head.

 

 

    

Now that I am back in (mostly) one place, I've been working on getting Warren Tales up and hopping on its new coast. Over the next six months I will be focusing on: purchasing a new design studio; developing a website; designing and producing a new streamlined catalog line; and working on bolstering a wholesale presence within some brick-and-mortar stores.

Being in a period of "construction" makes it difficult (right now) to do many of the digitally-based design components that I have utilized for the last year or two, but it does give me the opportunity to experiment, and develop some handmade products. For example, my two new map cuts!

An homage to the beautiful Coronado, California

And the wonderful Muswell Hill, London

After my work with the Boston scene for Small City, I was so happy to do more paper cutting, and especially for two more places I love. The Coronado cut is made with fine rice paper and measures 18 x 24", fitting in a standard frame size, and the Muswell Hill cut (8 x 14") is made with upcycled paper and highlights the many parks and train lines of the Northern London neighborhood.

I look forward to doing more and bigger cuts in the future, and hope I get a chance to make many more people happy by bringing their favorite and home towns to life.

Happy new year everyone, from one great adventure to the next!

A Radical Departure

Warren Tales is moving!

After six years in Boston—my favorite city, and a most beautiful home—it is time for me to move on. And so, I will be heading west and returning to my family's hometown and residence in California. 

Gaviota, California

As I make the move, I will be driving across the country—not simply in one route, to get across, but in something of an "S" through the north, mid, and south to finally see the different qualities and culture the States has within it: starting September 1st, and ending any time between Halloween and Thanksgiving. 

While the "American road trip" is typically steeped in vague, implausible, and unrealistically romantic expectations, which ultimately have a tendency of fizzling out into the form of a plane ticket, my trip (while certainly bolstering all of the same absurd/exciting hope and hype) will be completed mostly alone (with frequent, if not constant visits to old friends, and the occasional road tag-along), at a time in my life to which I have allotted significant time and budget in order to prevent issue. Contrived disclaimer aside: I have purchased a car, I have left my job, I have sold my furniture, I have relinquished my apartment, and I have shipped a six-year-accumulation-of-"stuff" home. Needless to say, I'm on my way!

Now, I ask you, reader, to lend me any advise you may have on what to do and what to see (or not) in any state you're familiar with (including Montreal and Toronto, if you feel inspired). I have three weeks until I roll out, and I would love to have as much region-research as I can before "winging" it. I will be camping, I will be visiting new cities, and I will be looking for a local perspective on what make those places great.

Finally, I will not be working on any original projects during this interim period, but my worker-bee brain is never turned off and I will post some fun highlights from the trip both here and on Facebook. I am however, participating in the 2013 Sketchbook Project with the Art House Co-op, producing a Travelogue across the States—marking major highlights creatively in sketch and paper-craft form, and including a selection of original or quoted writing. So be sure to check out the updates as I progress.

Thank you for everything, Boston, I'm entirely unsure of how I will drive away, but will find out soon enough. I leave you with poetry:

A Radical Departure 

by James Tate

Bye!

I'm going to a place so thoroughly remote

you'll never hear from me again.

No train ship plane or automobile

has ever pierced its interior

I'm not even certain it's still there

or ever was

the maps are very vague about it

some say here some say there

but most have let the matter drop

Yes of course it requires courage

I'll need two bottles of vintage champagne every day

to keep the morale high

and do you mind if I take your wife? 

Well, I guess this is it

we'll see ourselves to the door

Where are we . . . ?

Small City Chapbook Release

Warren Tales is double-dipping in creativity for the production of my new poetry chapbook!

Author Bio: Lindsey Yuriko Warriner is a shepherd of short poetry. She draws inspiration from her international upbringing, and dreams of one day writing an epic poem. She has been published by Alehouse Press, and was awarded the 2010 Evvy for Outstanding Poetry by Emerson College, where she earned her BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing.

 
Small City is a collection of short poems ranging in tone from whimsical, reflective, and socially curious. This chapbook was greatly inspired by the city of Boston and demonstrates this in a unique paper-cut depiction of the metropolitan downtown area, featured on the cover and title page.

   
The book measures 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches, and has been hand-bound with a tabbed "matchbook" saddle binding.

Each copy is numbered one through thirty out of thirty in this first edition print run.

Please see below for an example of two of the twenty-nine poems featured in the book, and contact warrentales@gmail.com with any further questions or supply inquiries. Orders will be purchased through Etsy.


Intention

If you open a bag
of potato chips
upside down,
you are in love.

There can be no other
explanation
for your distraction.


In Our Old Shipwrecked Days There Was An Hour

In the Gaviota hills, we find the final hour,
our time blown offshore by salted winds like an
old sun, waning. I was

shipwrecked in the broken underbrush. There,
days passed without a concept of days.
There, I imagined the shipwrecked

was a recital of everything old—
an exodus of memory in our
hour of expulsion. We've come, now let us in.

 

 

My book release and first reading feature took place this Monday as a part of the Stone Soup evening at the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, to a great reception—a studio packed full of friends, fellow poets, and long-time Stone Soup patrons. I read a selection of original poetry for twenty-five minutes, and not only didn't trip over my own words (or feet), but actually felt very comfortable up in front of the mic. And sold 8 copies of Small City (18 including online reservations). Take that, childhood jitters!

Thank you to Michael F. Gill for the booking, and for being a fabulous host.

An Inviting Round of Golf to Ring in Twenty-FORE!

I turned 24 this weekend, and decided to celebrate with a round of Pub Golf, if only to take advantage of the prime golf-pun potential (Twenty-Fore/Four was just too good to pass up). And of course, designing the themed invitations was half the fun!

The invitation features original artwork and lots of typography lovin', with a customized scorecard on the back, and a removable golf pencil for score keeping. The envelopes then feature a vintage golfer, raised to the touch using thermography (more nerdy joy). 

I was thrilled with the final outcome--of both the invitations and the event itself--and look forward another year of craftiness!

 

My fabulous teammates psyching up at Hole #3: