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A Black Mountain Morning

My lovely bosses, Elijah and Rhonda, invited Hugh and I to a picnic on the river near Black Mountain, NC. So sunny and relaxing and picturesque!
It's a shame the water looks so brown! It was actually crystal clear, and the bottom of the lazy river bed was mica sand, so it was actually really sparkly!

These butterflies were congregating in thick patches. Great opportunity to practice with the ol' macro lens on my new camera.


This trip was the bees knees, yall. Happy Father's Day!

New Job!

I no longer work at a flower shop. I miss my old boss and playing with blooms quite a bit, and hopefully I'll get a chance to explore the industry with more depth in the future, but I got a really great offer that I just couldn't pass up!

I work for Figs & Ginger now! Check out this video about Rhonda and Elija, the husband and wife team that own this jewelry company:

Figs & Ginger from John Carl on Vimeo.

As their studio manager I help them assemble jewelry, process orders, answer inquiries, and whatever else they need me to do. They're very flexible, so I still have plenty of time to make my own work, as well. This feels like a perfect fit for me, and I am as comfortable and happy as I've yet felt in North Carolina. Now that all the tumult of transition is over, I can hopefully get back to making work and posting progress.

Images from the Flower Shop

I got a new day job. Mother's Day did me in.

Maybe half of the orders we prepared for the Friday before Mother's Day

Some designs I've done.

A Message from Your Friendly Neighborhood Florist

With Mother's Day quickly approaching and the horrors of Valentine's Day long forgotten, can we please all take a moment to discuss the skilled trade known as flower design? It’s part of our American culture to send perishable allergens to people in their times of greatest distress or happiness. If you have something to make up for, or are REALLY trying to get in that single mom’s pants, please follow these guidelines.

1. Google search "florist" in the town of the recipient.

2.Take a quick look at your options, note customer reviews and star ratings, hours, and location.

3. Go to their website if you want. Most florists share a pre-made website with pre-designed arrangements from Teleflora. You can look at this to get an idea of what you like, but try not to get too attached to a particular arrangement, the pictures are IDEAS. We really probably don’t have every single thing that’s in there, so pick out what you like best about it (color? Size? Type of flower?) and remember that.

4. CALL THE FLORIST AND TALK TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE. They are there to help you! If they are rude, tell them you will be calling one of their competitors and hang up. Call someone else on the google search list.

5. Describe to the employee what your are looking for. Major considerations include PRICE: most florists have an $8-12 delivery fee (non negotiable) and minimums starting at $25. $50 is an average order and will get you a beautiful arrangement. Anything over $50 will be extraordinary. VALUE: Some flowers are less expensive than others. If you want something full and showy for less than $50, you are asking for daisies and carnations and mums. Roses are expensive, but they look valuable. If you want something that looks high end, like something you’d see in magazines, tell your florist to put the value in quality rather than quantity of flowers. Realize that this may result in a smaller arrangement. STYLE: There are two major categories- traditional or unique/artistic. Traditional arrangements tend to be in clear vases or wicker baskets, with that afro shape everyone seems to love. Lots of babies breath, carnations, daisies, stuff that's not going to shock anyone. Unique/artistic arrangements really should start at $40, and you will get something you've probably never seen before. There is a reason we are called "designers." We are creative people, we are interested in beauty, and we have a large knowledge of how to mix bizarre and graceful blooms to make something exciting. Some secondary considerations to mention only if you are particularly invested: COLOR (does mom love orange?) FRAGRANCE (do perfumes make mom nauseous? Avoid star gazer lilies!) LIFE SPAN (carnations, babies breath, and daisies last two weeks sometimes, but are super boring. If you want something exciting try tropicals- birds of paradise, protea, and orchids. Lilies, stock, tulips, and roses have relatively short lives outside the cooler.) And of course, if you want something specific CALL AHEAD! A week is best! We get daily shipments of flowers in a medium-sized city like Asheville. Not twice a day. If you need green dendrobium orchids and you want it this afternoon, good luck. We want your order, we WILL find them, but we will have to pay extra and so will you. CALL AHEAD.

While we're at it, here are some more things to know BEFORE you call:

1.The recipient’s address. We DO NOT know that Hardees that’s just off the second left past the interstate entrance. And if you don't know the last name of the recipient there at the Hardees, we're really going to hate you for making our poor, awesome delivery guy wander through a fast food restaurant looking for an employee who's probably not gay and didn't give you his full name on purpose because you're freaking him out and he's afraid you're stalking him. Which you are, by the way.

2. The recipient’s phone number. This applies especially in the winter. Though the rest of this town completely shut down during those snow storms, I walked the mile and a half to work. Believe it or not, it does occasionally snow on birthdays, marriages, and funerals, and we will do what we have to do to follow through with a promised order. Our delivery van does not have a plow attachment. If we are going to borrow the owner’s 4-wheel drive truck and then hike up your unplowed driveway to drop off a vase of roses when it’s –12 with the windchill, we better damn well know you’re home. And no we will not leave them on the porch when it’s below freezing outside, there’s a reason plants drop their foliage in the fall, your arrangement will too, in about 90 seconds.

3. A window of time when the recipient will be at the address. Under the rarest circumstances can we guarantee to be there at a specific time. Exceptions include event set-ups, which you should expect an extra charge for. We send our guy out with 3-6 deliveries, and he uses his discretion on routes. If you need it there before noon- perfect! Between 3-5- absolutely. At 4:15- No. And please be realistic. We open at 8:30. Our driver delivers pizza at nights, too. We try to let him sleep 8 hours before getting on the road again. Oh, and we don’t pay him much, so tip if it’s convenient! He IS a professional!

4. What you want to say on the card. "With our deepest sympathy, Love, the Smiths" is always classy and appropriate. Inside jokes are great, we love them, don't be embarrassed. Please don't make us purposefully misspell things. It doesn't make YOU look cute, it makes US look stupid.

5. Have a credit card handy. We will not bill you. We will not take your business if you don’t pay us. We take cash or check if you come in the store in person.

6. Have a second choice in mind. If we can’t get those green dendrobiums, can we use purple? If we don’t have red snapdragons, which is more important, the snapdragons or the red?

PLEASE! We beg of you! Call us before you place an order on the internet! Find our store on google, and call the number provided before you call 1-800-flowers! These sites and numbers are just order-takers. They’re not florists. It’s a guy with a headset in Omaha. He sells you flowers that he can’t see and charges you $7-15 for the service, then takes an additional 20% of the money for the entire order from the independent florist who fills it. So we are filling your order whether you call us or not, only you’re paying $7-15 more than you’d have to, and we’re making significantly less than our asking price. In order to even get the orders, we have to pay a monthly fee to the order-taking company, anyway. They are taking our business and crapping up the quality of the customer service while charging us for the benefit. Please just spend 15 seconds typing “florist” into google. By the way, the same goes for that pre-made website with the pre-made arrangements. The order taking company takes 20% of our money for the flowers and charges us a huge amount for the website with those pictures.

In conclusion, I’d like to impress that we florists provide a specialized service that requires years of training, and we’re not exactly making bank. We make a very meager living. The best designers can rarely ask for more than $12 an hour. We do this because we love it and it’s fulfilling, not because it’s lucrative and we’re hustling you out of your hard earned money. Flowers are expensive, they are perishable, and they are fickle. We spend our lives trying to figure them out. It’s fascinating and frustrating and a constant challenge, and we’re the kind of people that get off on that. If you trust us, we will not disappoint. And do not underestimate our desperation. The industry is dying and we WANT to LIVE! Whatever you want! We will do it! If you are unhappy, we will do whatever is necessary to make it up to you, provided you make a believable case. (Hey, you guys hustle, too!)

I really look forward to designing your flowers for Mother’s Day!

Another Weekend with Few Accomplishments

I really haven't been making any new work lately. I started a scarf months ago and it's still on the loom. The torch hasn't heated up except for some random etsy orders, and I haven't even been sketching new ideas. Motivation and morale are low. This dry spell started with a string of rejections and rejection is something that I can deal with, but I'm starting to wonder if this has deeper roots. I'm going to start making again, I promise, I just need a little break from what I've been doing to reconsider what I'm going to be doing.

In the meantime, though, I can't keep my hands still. I'll keep posting what I'm working on, even if it's just a dumb flower drawing. I work at a flower shop full time. I see a lot of flowers. I am very much not interested in spending much more time with them than I already do, but they do make good captive subjects when I'm feeling like getting lost in detail.

My goal with drawings is to include detail to the point of abstraction. If I quit while it still looks like something, I haven't worked hard enough. I got sunburned yesterday drawing this iris, but was still bored by how literal it was. So last night I drew a sketch of my sketch with obsessive crosshatch for shading, and now I feel like I'm happy with it. In my book they mirror each other.

Red Clay River - An Update

This is a video from The Knitting Factory, where I watched my friends play in Brooklyn two weeks ago.

They stayed with my sister in Bushwick, Brooklyn and woke up to find their van with all their gear gone. The next day they got word from NYPD that the van was recovered and we have been waiting for the owner to go claim it to see if anything was left. Unfortunately, only a mandolin and a 50 gallon drum that they used for percussion was left. It's tragic. So enjoy this video of the last time they ever played with these instruments, and I'll show you where you can buy their cd. It's the best way I can think of to contribute to the cause.