the crazy swamp of work that i've been living in for the past few weeks is starting to show signs of giving back! i've been working hard on getting holiday product ready and in the
shop: our
6ft tree is back and we're excited to be offering a
3ft. tabletop version that, i must admit, has stollen my heart! i really feel like this baby has the best of everything: a beautifully tapered {and proportioned} trunk, a hearty base and dainty dowels ... it's flexible for small spaces and extra special in large ones ... and the price tag is proportionately smaller as well! i've also been working on expanding our offering of
ornaments: including some in
raw plywood, some
entirely new designs and a smaller flake {perfect for the 3ft. tree} will be added in the coming day or so. {will share images then}
on the architecture front, i've been working pretty hard on a long list of design award submittals for my dad. last thursday the
AIA-MN honor awards were announced and i am happy to report that 2 of the 3 projects that we submitted won awards!
HawksBoots is the headquarters for
LOLL DESIGNS which is based in my hometown of Duluth, MN. the
YINGST RESIDENCE is a fantastic house in michigan that could very well be my father's best project to date .. but i guess it does depend on how you look at it, because there are so many other good ones! anyway, receiving these 2 awards is icing on a very big cake for him this year. the
Minnesota chapter of AIA is
honoring him with the Gold Medal, which is the highest honor that the AIA can bestow upon an individual for their acheivement in architecture. HUGE huge honors for him. i couldn't be more proud!
thank you to those of you who have inquired about my time in chicago for the ONE OF A KIND show. it has taken nearly a week to get myself back together enough to blog again... my friend, berry, and i left at 5am wednesday morning and arrived home at 2am monday morning. the show was what i knew it would be all of the good, bad, indifferent .. exciting, promising and most of all exhausting. i didn't sell as much as i dreamed i would, but developed several wholesale contacts with high-quality establishments which really made everything worth while. i was able to interact with customers and to the select group who spent more than 10 minutes chatting with me, i thank you! we also met some great artists who were also in the show - who were very open and honest about the process of doing these things. i'm not convinced i'm cut out for these shows....but that could be the {billable-hour} architect in me shining through... anyway, that can wait for another time. here are some images of my booth {and my attempt to work with a horrendously placed column!}
luckily {thanks to a great deal on hotwire.com} this is the place we called home at the end of each night. and while the nights were short and the days at the show were long, i did capture images of a couple inspiring buildings/spaces. i will share those, along with some of the inspiring people we met in my next post.
last, and most importantly, this post is dedicated to my dear friend berry, without whom i would certainly have lost my mind ... i cannot thank her enough for putting up with me during such a stressful time!
