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2011: Still Not Trying

If you’ve ever read our About page, you might know that our name, Perfect Laughter, came from a Bukowski poem called Roll The Dice. The whole spirit of the thing is about taking risks and having faith that they’ll pay off. Go all the way. “Don’t Try.” Do it.

We started this blog a little more than two years ago now with some future plans that we thought, at the time, were a bit crazy. In 2009 we spent countless hours learning to screenprint via our wedding invitations – a very stressful choice of guinea pigs, needless to say. That year, we also drove 1,656 miles to buy a printing press that we had no idea how to use. We were doing our best to go all the way.

We kept on blogging and produced our first screenprint, First Snow. Then in January, we relaunched a totally redesigned website with a new brand identity to boot. And that’s when things started to happen. A LOT of things. It’s no wonder that here we are, four days into the new year, and we’re still reflecting upon the events of 2010. It’s a little overwhelming to do as many other bloggers have done over the past few days, and recap our last year.

Relive 2010 with us, and find out what’s in store for 2011…

Let’s Bring Artspace to Michigan

If you’re an artist in the Detroit area who wants more space to create, Artspace wants to hear from you. Non-profit org Artspace Projects is partnering with Dearborn officials to investigate the need for an artists space. It could end up housing live/work spaces, individual studios, or spaces for creative businesses to incubate. It could have common work areas for disciplines that need expensive equipment, like ceramics, letterpress, screenprinting, woodworking and darkrooms for photography. There’s also the potential for retail or gallery space where artists could show off their work.

Whether or not this happens, where it goes and what kind of facilities it will offer depends on the results to this survey. If you’re an artist or a “creative and arts friendly business” (the definition is loose), Artspace wants to hear from you. The survey asks all the right questions, from what our needs are to how much we could afford.

Unless you’re still in school, it’s really difficult to find affordable creative workspace in the Detroit area. A resource like this could be fantastic to have at our disposal. Artspace has done this in other cities, and it would be great to have one here. So take the survey and hopefully we can make this happen.

Take the Artspace Survey

1xRUN: A Print A Week by 323East

This week, 323East debuted 1xRUN, which will bring you one super limited edition print each Monday. A few weeks ago, we happen to stumble into the gallery while they were working on the site, and from the sneak peek we were given, we knew right away it was going to be awesome.

Matt Eaton’s print “Loaf” (above) kicked things off and also made us look forward to his first ever solo show opening this Saturday. Coming up, they’re going to release prints by Bask, Glenn Barr, Audrey Pongracz, David Chung and Adam Batchelor.

Not only will 1xRUN make great pieces of art more accessible to everyone, but it also lets people outside Detroit enjoy the extremely well curated work that we get to see in person. We suggest that you like 1xRUN on Facebook or follow @1xRUN on Twitter so you can nerd out with us every Monday.

While We’re Away

Posting is going to be a little light around here for the next week or so. We’re going to that place that Michiganders affectionately call “Up North” for the weekend, and then buckling down in preparation for the People’s Arts Festival. In the meantime, may we suggest a few things to keep you busy?

• The Silent Giants have a show going on at 323East. We missed the opening and don’t have pics, but their posters will be up through the weekend.
• You can head to Midtown tonight for the Canfield Street Market. 5-9 outside of City Bird.
• After that, hit up the closing reception for That DAM Box Show. 6-9 pm at the Detroit Artists Market.
• Send us a submission! Suggest an artist for us to blog about by emailing us at heyyouguys at perfectlaughter dot com. Please don’t be shy about suggesting yourself, even if you don’t have a fancy website/portfolio. Send us a couple of images, and you could get a little piece of the internet in the form of a Perfect Laughter blog post.
• We’re in the middle of finishing a couple of new prints. We’ve been posting process pics on Twitter, as well as other daily shenanigans. You can follow us at @perfectlaughtr.
• If you’re not into Twitter, we have a Facebook fan page or a like page or whatever it’s called this week. But we try to only post important stuff on there so we’re not spammin’ up people’s Facebooks.

We’ll try to post a few times next week as we are able, and we hope to see you next weekend at the People’s Arts Festival!

GIVEAWAY WINNER!!

I got so many great suggestions for posters from our giveaway entrants. Thanks to everyone who entered. I’m going to have a tough time deciding what to buy. Here’s a sampling of not all, but many of the posters and poster artists that our fine readers suggested. You guys have such great taste.

Clockwise from top left: The Bird Machine, House Industries, The Wheatfield, Nate Duval, Jeff Boyes, Brainstorm, Todd Slater. Center: Mattson Creative.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Angela Duncan!! Congrats, lady! And thanks for your awesome suggestion of the Take It Easy poster by Brainstorm.

If you didn’t win, or didn’t enter, not to worry. Our fancy print is now in our shop, available to one and all. Thanks again to everyone who suggested a poster!

Copyright © 2008-2012 Perfect Laughter