The Blank Agency and a little 2019 fashion update.

I had the pleasure of having work with The Blank Agency that was made public and it is an amazing piece of work.
Using my fashion designs to shoot this cinematic presentation. Which you can view here!

The pieces used were from a white and gold collection I did to embody different royal characters from Alice in Wonderland.

The White Queen is long silk and velvet dress
The Red Queen is the gold silk skirt and embroidered top
Queen Alice is the gold bow dress
Simply Alice is the white bell pants with the Silk coverup

This was part of my Senior Collection for The School of the Art Institute of Chicago back in 2003. It is crazy to see old work of my still being relevant and exciting for other people. It's an inspiration that I would like to visit again some day in the future to see how my style has changed since then.

From here on is an update on since I had stopped my blog but wanted to finish off some of my drafts that I had started. 

It has been a few years and I feel like my design aesthetic for fashion has moved even further into two directions. Full functionality in the form of the handmade slow fashion movement to wear clothes you made yourself and high art form where it may not even be a wearable piece as much as sculpture or a representation of organic form.  We will see what 2019 can unfold for my progress as a designer and artist.

I'm not Dead yet!

Nope still here. Just uber busy with Independents day! Also branding myself a little more and working on my website and figuring the logistics of hosting and what I need to pay.

I am the Craft Alley essentially for the upcoming Independents day Columbus which means managing 40 arts/craft vendors, Interactive make and take tent and Crafty Death Match on the Stage from 6-7pm.  What that also means is hauling around tents, tables, materials for all said things which also includes a 6x4' plinko board, 2x2.5' table vending machine, lights, 6 chairs, 2 tents, 4-6 tables and all of my booth materials to vend as well. Then there is all the intense PR work I am doing to make sure EVERY single one of my vendors is being represented in a promotion and the vendors giving us Donations for the prizes are getting as much promotion on facebook and twitter as I can crank out. It is a ton of work. Next year I will demand an intern. Even with all this hard work I love this Festival. To me it really embodies and spirit of supporting local and upcoming artists all around our community.

Do me a solid and please follow @CraftAlleyCbus and retweet all my vendor promotions or just your favorites.

Also in more Independents Day news I will have two pieces up for Raffle with the Ohio Art League tent. They are some of my early works from my new study on wounds and human emotions. These are small works 3x3" and 4x4". Perfect for a little desk or office space art to remind you whatever hurts you will heal eventually.

I am unfortunately ill prepared as I am overflowing with knitwear and the weather looks to be about 80 degrees that day. I'll need to get my butt moving on some new skirts to sew, flower hair pins and my new lace tatted necklaces I've been itching to debut.

I have a very busy weekend ahead of me with much sewing and crafting.
I hope you have a great weekend and see you next week!

Fame & Fortune!

No not really. Well maybe a little bit of fame. My friend Grace Dobush's sequel to her widely popular craft business book "Crafty SuperStar" has just been republished. It still has the same great content with a good number of additives and I am proud to be one of them!

I  chimed in on my experiences on Regretsy. Yes that was plural, I've been on Regretsy more then once and not ashamed of it at all. In fact let's take a gander back at those links here and here. It's nothing personal just bored people who love to flame. I'm not upset by them at all in fact it gave me some amazing traffic on my etsy site and resulted in a good number of sales. You can read more of my opinions and lemons to lemonade philosophy in the book!

 

It was super exciting for me to have a little Bio in at the end with a shout out back to my blog. I can easily say this year has been one of the best years of my life, Craft Wars to another publication credit. There was a good reason I wasn't able to get into Grad School. Let's hope the good things keep happening and I can bear the work that is coming up for festival organizing and personal art/fashion projects.

To help with all of that I finally started to move into my shared studio space with Stinky Bomb Soap maker Megan Green over at Junctionview Studios! I look forward to some long nights in silence getting some work done.

So the studio has been my excuse from doing blogging, among other things. I have a lot of catch up work to do and embroideries planned. I need to put my mind to the grindstone and since all the festivals are pretty well formed it's just a matter for me not getting distracted. My biggest distractions are starting new projects when the old ones need desperate attention. ONWARD!

Tomorrow is a new Craft Day

Tomorrow is Independents Day here in Columbus, Ohio.  A wonderful festival to show off and help support independent artists, crafters, bands, restaurants and other various entrepreneurs.  I was interviewed for an article Here with Outlook magazine. 

This will be my second year organizing the Craft Alley. It is sort of amazing to me how people come together and make such great things happen.  Last year I did it alone and it was hard, a bit overwhelming and I didn't get to enjoy myself that much.  This year has been a breeze with my two friends Laura of Creux Poche and Miss Megan Mac helping me carry the load of responsibilities.  I also feel this second time I knew a lot more so I know what I am getting myself into.

This was a photo from Last year nearly all the ladies pictured will be in attendance this year. Starting from the left side:

Miss Megan Mac

Mary Moon Designs

What the Rock?!

Poshta

Out of the Pink Sky

Umbrella Girl Productions

Torn Angel

Wholly Craft

Maram

Stinky Bomb 

(whom unfortunately will not be here this year but we still love them!)

Aside from missing Stinky Bomb we will also be adding some more fine artists into the Craft Alley and we had applications.  This being the 4th year of the festival and 2nd year of the Crafty Cotillion managing Craft Alley we wanted to raise the bar and show the very best of Local goods as well as a variety of different types of craft and art. It was a very hard choice and we tried to make it as painless as possible on the application.  It was also unfortunate that some great people just couldn't seem to get their application filled out or back to us in time or even neglecting to pay their vendor booth fee.  We had to be fair and not play favorites and not give anyone leeway. It was tough but necessary.  After doing this I feel like I have just gotten a taste of what bigger craft shows must go through when they have people applying all over the State or Country for hopes of their 6 ft table or 10x10 ft space.

So here's to tomorrow!  That everything goes smoothly and I will do my best to put a blog recap on Monday.  Other things on the blog queue are Bachelorette at the Lake House, Rehearsal Dinner, The Grand Nerdtastic Wedding (which will be awhile), Making my Brother's Fiancee's Wedding dress this Sunday, Honeymoon from London/Paris/Rome! and some Sewing projects I have completed since I got back about a week ago.  

I know I have a problem I can stop sewing..........

Just a little Craft

I took some photos of my newest little creations for Craft shows.  I try to get in a little here and there to make some new things since I don't want to be bum-rushed after the wedding to make new stock for the fall shows.  This year I decided I might try and apply for some shows outside of Columbus just to see if I can cut it or not.  Also the extra cash would be great.

Needle felted Pin Cushion Rings

 Fabric Hair Kazanshi Clips

The hardest thing for me is trying to keep true to my Identity fashion wise as Torn Angel and be selling my crafts under that same name.  I've teetered back and forth with using my side teaching name to sell my crafts but I've been under the name Torn Angel for the past 3 years at craft shows I don't want to rock the boat with changing names.  Also since I started out primarily as clothing and knitwear I've had to change my craft a bit to accommodate for the other seasons or just to have items that are year round friendly.  That has been my biggest challenge in trying to stay true to my aesthetic under Torn Angel.  I find there are so many things I could make that would probably sell well but they don't fit in the overall identity of what I am heading towards for Torn Angel.  It's a slippery slope my friends trying to be in the art/fashion game while still enjoying and trucking it through the craft circuits.  Just this year is the first time I felt comfortable putting my craft out in other stores as consignment.

I will be at Independents day (you know, since I am the organizer for Craft Alley and all) and I am applying once again for Craftin' Outlaws.  Hope to see you at one of those events!

Local News

Hey friends!  Today was a bit of a surprise this morning.  I found out my name was promoted as part of an article about the wonderful show ViewFinder I am doing this weekend.  It was from our local paper the Columbus Alive!

It's funny how people precieve you, I guess I should be flattered but instead I'm pretty embarassed.  I was referred to as the "knit goddess Esther Myong Chung of Torn Angel", none of my other friends mentioned had weird titles put in front of their names nor the use of both their name and store name.  So odd.....

Not to mention they make more work for me!  They featured a lovely photo from my Etsy of the Mohawk Hunter hat which I had no intentions of making for this show but alas..... I must.  People want what they see pretty pictures of.

You can read the Article for youself right HERE!
Most Importantly you should come out and see what I have worked tiredlessly to produce for yourselves.  Cowls, fingerless wristlets, neck warmers, kanashi flower Hair pins and Cat's Bane yarn Guards!

Here's an amusing photo of me at work.  Being creative and using both my swift and ball winder sideways since I had no other ledges to attach them to the other night.

Holiday Blitz!

Wow this holiday has really kicked my ass!  I barely got anything done fashion related except some excellent shopping at Sales from Urban Outfitters and Forever 21.

I'm excited for this New Year because it has a lot of good things going for it already.  I've put myself back out into working on photo shoots with people I trust who are on the same level as me for quality in their own art forms.  Here are two photos.  Hair and Makeup by Epixa, Photos by Chip Willis, model is Taylor from Wings Modeling agency and of course clothing by me.

In this New year I promise better posts, more truths from my twisted little nerdy mind and better OTD's

10 year Class Reunion

I know this is totally out of order and but you are getting 3 posts for the past three days today.
Here is the one from yesterday!

It was my 10 year High School Reunion. Upper Arlington Class of 1999. I feel a little old but mostly content. It was a long time since high School and I am a completely different person then I was back then. I saw a lot of people that I knew but not many that I actually wanted to talk to. I would look at people to recognize them then quickly turn away because I didn't want to make eye contact and for them to talk to me. Maybe it was rude but it was just kinda weirding me out. I did get to talk to an old friend of mine that I have truly missed and reconnected. I heard a lot of people saying my name and would catch them pointing and whispering about me. Andy said it freaked people out to see him and I holding hands or smooching a little here and there. I thought that was all really weird since we have been together over 5.5 years and it's no secret that we are together. I think it was just annoying that no one actually came up to talk to me but just whispered. That just took me back to High School all over again.

Onto the outfit!


I am wearing a navy striped shirt dress designed and made by me
Black corset belt from Target
Copper Crocheted cuff with freshwater pearls made by me
Crystal drop earrings made by me
Navy blue She of London Ballet Flats.
Toki doki "I love LA" Bullet watch

My earrings if you noticed are uneven and with different sets of crystals falling down. That is sort of my signature thing is doing earrings that match but aren't exactly the same. I feel it is more playful that way. Also gives people with multiple piercings the option to wear a single earring and have something else to match on the opposite side. I was really happy with how well the shirt dress came out so I am going to be sure to make it in several styles for the fashion show. I'm always very happy when I get a good steady pattern to use as stock for others.