New Season

Here is a piece of wall art that I sold in the shop over the weekend. It's called New Season.



(My brother-in-law is the new proud owner.)

It's a paper and pen collage on 8"x10" canvas panel. Types of paper used: scrapbook, sketchbook, magazine, and pages from a 1978 Harlequin romance novel. This weekend I will start some new pieces with more materials, and I am really excited to see what will come.

I've made a few sales on Etsy already, and I am so thrilled.

xoxo Courtney Quiet City

Quiet City store opening

The Quiet City store on etsy.com is officially open, and stocked with postcards and wall art! Please visit:

http://quietcity.etsy.com

Thank you,
xoxo Courtney

Why I am so attached.

On the second day of fall, we drove out to a farm in a nearby town to buy our favorite bread and cookies. As we drove down the river valley, we passed fields and reddening trees and farmhouses and white-grey clouds. It was the same on the way home, on the other side of the valley. It looked and felt so autumnal and my heart swelled a bit knowing I am finally home now for my favorite season.



I like all of the seasons, I do. I love swimming in the summer and not wearing shoes and sky-watching at night. I love having my birthday and the holidays in the wintertime, and the first snows that are welcome instead of burdensome and brown, and the smell of the cold and the warmth of bodies and the indoors. In the springtime I love the triumph of the return of green, the volume of the earth waking up and yawning- birds returning, snow melting, mud squishing. Even the sun seems loud in its warmth in those first days. I love the earthy smell of the thaw and the regrowth.

And fall. Oh, fall. I love the rest I know will come. The hot breath of summer smudges into autumn's sigh of relief that we all get our rest over the coming months, to save up energy for celebrating spring and not staying still all summer. Fall means sweaters and scarves, and hands wrapped tightly around warm mugs, and state fairs. It’s the first smell of cold in the air and the sound of leaves falling and crunching underfoot.

One of my favorite things about fall is when you are walking down the sidewalk and suddenly a little wind picks up, and it turns a dry pile of leaves into a tiny knee-high tornado that plays at your feet before disappearing. I love the reds and oranges, the apples and pumpkins, and the celebrations of Halloween and Thanksgiving.



I don’t see fall as an end (except to summer). I don’t see it as decay or death or depressing. We all need to take that breath. That pause. We’ll all spring up again with the green in six months. For now we rest. We get close to those we may get close to, without sweating and sticking to each other. We close our eyes and dream of warmth and comfort.

It’s right next to us.

officially,

Quiet City is opening on Etsy.com around noon, eastern time, on Friday, September 26, 2008. Postcards and wall art will be available first, with tree ornaments and more stationery to follow.



^ You can click that image to bring you to my Etsy shop, which will have items available on Friday. Thank you to my friend Nicole, who helped me set that logo up. I actually drew that quiet little cityscape over two years ago, and Nicole's photoshop and all-around genius is what got the font and linkage there. (Is linkage a word?)

xoxo Courtney

And the winner is...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

10


The 10th comment was left by Bossy!
Congratulations, Bossy!
You have an email waiting for you.

Thank you to all twenty of you who entered the
contest to win my postcards. There were familiar
friends and new faces, and I was happy to see you all.

Today and yesterday I spent some time creating wall art-
collage/ink on 8"x10" canvas panel. I am really
happy with the one I finished yesterday, and the one
I started today is coming along nicely. Come back here
to see them soon, and of course since my Etsy shop
opens on Friday I hope you'll keep your eyes on that
too!

Because I had more comments than I anticipated, I
just decided to give away single cards to three more
readers.

*waves hands over crystal ball goes back to random.org*

Dear Lisa, Malisa, and Martin, congratulations!
You have each won ONE of my postcards- you choose
which design!

Thanks again, everyone! Contests will become a
regular thing- at least once monthly- so remember
to come back and visit me here in Quiet City.

xoxo Courtney

Contest to celebrate the Autumn Equinox!

*EDIT: The contest has now ended; thank you to all who entered! <3

The wait is over!

Fall is here and the Quiet City Etsy store will open later this week.

BUT FIRST, you can win a complete set of Quiet City postcards inspired by the music of matt pond PA by leaving a comment on this blog entry. In your comment just tell me what you like about fall, and you'll be entered in the contest. Enter before Wednesday, September 24 at 8 pm eastern time. I will use a random number generator on Wednesday after 8 pm to choose one winner. After the winner is selected, I will contact that person to let them know about the win.

If you do win, this is what you get:



One set of ten 4"x6"postcards: the front is glossy and has a thin white border- and the back is suitable for writing. The back has a small label centered at the top with artist info for Matt Pond and myself, and is otherwise blank. Each of the ten cards is different; all of the images can be found within this blog if you are new to Quiet City. The cards are prints made from my original drawn collage works.

The set is packaged with a 2" band of paper cut from an old Parents Magazine publication called The Mother's Encyclopedia, and sealed at the front with a little sticker bearing the Quiet City initials. It's suitable for gift-giving or keeping, and mailing or... you know, keeping.



Good luck to all of you! And make sure to check back regarding my store opening.

Oh and if you don't win this contest, there's still hope! Due to human error (my own with the paper cutter, dang it!) I have some postcards I will not be selling but giving away as well. The images are perfectly fine but the labels came out less than perfect. Those will be given out a few times over the next couple of weeks.

Other than my Quiet City work today I ushered in the new season this morning by eating anadama toast for breakfast and looking up a recipe so I can try to make some of my own bread. I usually buy it from this farm in a nearby town. I washed it down with a nice mug of warm apple cider from this orchard in Auburn. I would have loved to take a walk with my husband and son to take in the beautiful Maine fall sweetness, but my son is fighting off a nasty cold and I didn't want the cooler air sneaking up in his tiny little congested nose! There will be other walks.

I'll be gushing more about fall this week and next (and probably the following few that follow) with pictures and dreamy ramblings.

See what other artistic and crafty bloggers were up to in recognition of the equinox by visiting Lisa's Polka Dot Cottage blog.

xoxo Courtney

Sweetnesses of September

September is my favorite month. I know I use the word favorite a lot, but please know it still means something when I say it. Sure, I have maybe three or so other favorite months as well, but September is magical. It's the beginning of fall, the marching band season (be still, my heart!), apple and pumpkin seasons, sweater weather, and leaves changing. October might be my second-favorite, for its extension of these things.

I'm on my way again in Quiet City. I had the labels for artist information printed today (Boooo, Staples! Yayyyy, Kinko's!) and I started measuring and cutting them tonight. It's a lot of work. My back hurts from hunching over my paper cutter. I also made my decision about packaging for the postcard sets (It was right under my nose the whole time!) so now that the labels are done, I can start setting those up.

Next step? Money and bank things I'll take care of early Tuesday. Then.... dun, dun, dun!.... I open up shop. I know, it's taken forever.

I want to make it worth this wait.

There's a contest or two coming up real soon. Please keep checking back! Please tell all your friends!

I'm still here!

I am just working on some packaging ideas and waiting on some information before I set up shop.

Don't you forget about me.

xoxo Courtney Quiet City