video - a wee slice of tinyshop

A short video of one of the arrangements in tinyshop. Video footage thankfully taken by audio artist, Macronecole. I was too pooped to pip! I'll have more pics and hopefully video up soon.

A big (and certainly not tiny) THANK YOU to all of the artists who participated in the show, came to the opening, and brought good cheer. Hugs to all!

Works shown: Amy Earles, Lisa Congdon, Catherine Campbell, Nathalie Roland, 1911, Peng Peng, Katrina Szyszkoski, Ryoko Yagi, Ruth Bleakley, Melissa Contreras, Jessica Polka, Maki Squarepatch, and Purple Petunia.

artist profile - Nathalie Roland

Nathalie Roland, born in Santa Monica, California, and began printmaking at the age of 17. Roland graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Art/printmaking.

She has called Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo home and currently resides in a sunny, wood chip littered, San Francisco apartment (aka the Pastry Palace) where ink, monsters and music constantly battle for her attention. Her work has been shown in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Barcelona, and Portland. She has been known to eat cookies in her sleep.
www.headphonerecord.com

artist profile - Catherine Campbell

Catherine Campbell lives in a tumble down house in Melbourne, Australia. She potters around talking to her cats, generally making a mess, and drawing a lot of little lines on lovely papers late into the night.

For inspiration, Catherine obsessively collects the quiet little whimsical moments of everyday life. Most of her drawings are tiny.
www.catherinecampbell.net

>>> Catherine's paintings available to purchase online

artist profile - Shawnimals

Shawnimals was born in a town called Normal, Illinois. Shawnimals is Shawn Smith and Jen Brody. Together they form a design studio that creates off-the-wall yet lovable characters. Shawn and Jen turned Shawnimals from a fun hobby/college art project in 2001, into a full-fledged, honest-to-goodness (yet still incredibly fun) business they continue to run together.

Shawn manifests the Shawnimal characters, with Jen's power as co-seamstress, bookworm, lover of all animals, eater of anything with sugar, and all around nice person.
www.shawnimals.com

artist profile - APAK

Ayumi and Aaron Piland are the fantastical magical duo known as APAK. They are a husband and wife collaborative art team who live among the trees in a little cabin on the outskirts of Portland.

When they combine forces they are able to travel to other dimensions, beyond time and space to bring back images from their travels for your viewing pleasure.
www.apakstudio.com

artist profile - Mikas Mogo

Magicmikas (aka Mikas Mogo) is an artist that sewed her way out from Lisbon to San Francisco, with occasional intermissions to accommodate other mediums.

Nowadays, she spends more time changing diapers, but still finds some time to work in-between feedings.
// Mikas on Flickr

artist profile - Macronecole

Macronecole is a moniker that Peter Arroyo uses until a more suitable one comes along. Simultaneously fond of various 20th Century composers/compositions and Pop/Rock music, he finds that the realm of sound/site-specific installations helps to reconcile the 2 genres in him.

Previous works include sound installations for various spaces, website audio/music, many recording projects, perpetual band pursuits, and several performed compositions for various chamber ensembles.
www.myspace.com/macronecole

artist profile - Melissa Contreras

Melissa Contreras was born and raised in Fresno, California. She came to LA to finish her Biology Degree at UCLA. Realizing her heart wasn't in it, she switched to Art. Thrown head first into the world of high concept art, those 3 years were a blur of not fitting in and just not getting it.

After graduating, she landed a job making craft samples for an educational toy company. Knowing that wouldn't get her far, Melissa convinced them to let her try her hand at Graphic Design. Many years (and catalogs) later, she started Axelhoney as a way to focus her creative energy. She realizes to be happy she must do what she truly loves, and let her art take her where ever it wants to...
www.axelhoney.com

artist profile - TADworks

Relocated to the U,S. from Japan almost two decades ago, Tomoko Deeney (aka TADworks) studied New England grave stones and graphic design... but somehow ended up doing what she always loved to do: play with clay (plus paper and wool). Her inspiration usually comes from her love for food, little creatures, and people.
www.thegoodsmaker.blogspot.com

artist profile - Peng Peng

With a background in fine arts and BFA in painting, Peng Peng has been making imaginative teddy bears since 2003, after seeing a tiny primitive bear her mother made in her free time. Her creations are inspired by "old & new", folk art, pop culture, fairy tales and the animal kingdom.
www.peng-peng.com

artist profile - Rio Vizmanos(Pushpurix)

Once upon a beginning Rio used to write haiku-size poetry, but when they started to get bigger than a postcard he turned to conceptual performance/poetry, like trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most amount of sighs in one day. He also lived blind-folded for a while, but when he finally saw the light he started to dance and got off hard on experimental theater.

The piece for this show is a reproduction of things he gave his ex-boyfriends three times upon a time. He still sighs and collects sighs from people by massaging them and lives in San Francisco.

artist profile - Amy Earles

Amy Earles was born in California in a military hospital that no longer exists, but she has lived in Indiana for most of her life -- making art based on the observations she's made since her first memories and dreams.
www.pushedunder.com

artist profile - Marilyn Patrizio

Marilyn Patrizio is a Brooklyn born freelance illustrator and fine artist. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Illustration.

When she is not searching the internet like a rabid animal for the latest kawaii items from Japan, she enjoys creating crochet toys, painting portraits and organizing all her belongings by color.
www.mpatrizio.com

artist profile - Evon Lim

Evon Lim is from the sunny island of Singapore. She graduated in animation, and later ventured into making toys and objects in 2005. She is an illustrator who creates plush toys and crochets amigurumi characters.

As a person who loves to be hands on, her craft hobbies have filled her with joy, which becomes infectious to those who enjoy her creations. Evon believes strongly in the power of handmade -- it's uniqueness and details that set it apart from all other pieces.
www.evon.tehpeng.com

artist profile - Allison Sommers

Allison Sommers is a self-taught artist living in Charlottesville, VA. Although she daylights as the art director of a local newsweekly, her true passion for making is funneled into creating tiny and complicated worlds of activity and non-sequitur.
// Allison on Flickr

artist profile - Kup Kup Land

Joaquima Casas Bo is an artist based in Spain. Born in Barcelona and currenly living in Santander, Joaquima is the creator of the Kup Kup Land project. Kup Kup Land is inhabited by infamous characters, such as Kup Kup, Lolo, Nana, Chloé, and the sweets monsters (among many others).

Joaquima is currently working on a new series of works under the alias "Lil'Butcher." She has been working and producing extensively as an illustrator and toy designer.
www.kupkup-land.blogspot.com/

artist profile - Ruth Bleakley

Ruth Bleakley currently resides with her husband Ryan Schenk and their cat Meowstro in the small seaside town of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. While growing up she moved constantly, due to her father's military career, and spent eleven years overseas living in Germany, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Her senior show in college featured gigantic eight foot wide paintings of cats but her interest has recently moved to the opposite end of the spectrum with her miniature books.
www.meowstro.etsy.com

artist profile - Ashley G & Drew

Ashley Goldberg works with her boyfriend, Drew Bell, creating digital art from their apartment as Ashley G & Drew. Ashley found a way to work a childhood full of drawing into an adult's life. The characters she creates, whether monsters or little girls, are simple, humorous, empathetic, and a little bit pathetic.

"Over the years, my creatures have become decidedly more design driven, but a part of me is still just drawing little friends to have."
www.kittygenius.com

>>> Limited prints available online

artist profile - Katrina Szyszkoski

Katrina Szyszkoski's art career started in church, in the 70's, when her mom gave her a pencil and notebook to stop squirming. From then on, it was non-stop drawing, with huge influences from her mother, and many members of her extended artist family.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Katrina studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Center for Creative Studies in Michigan. She is fascinated with the human figure and tends to incorporate this theme in much of her work. She currently lives in Japan, absorbing, enjoying and appreciating the incredible beauty and simplicity of Japanese art and life.
www.oatmealcookie.etsy.com

artist profile - Lisa Congdon

San Francisco mixed media artist and illustrator, Lisa Congdon, works in several mediums, including paper collage, screen-printing, ink, textiles and paint. She is mostly self-taught, and uses her lack of training to her advantage. Instead of following refined technique, she works with her own sense of color, composition and design as her guide. Lisa is almost constantly photographing and annotating her life; each of her pieces, often part of a larger series, usually starts as an idea she documents in one of several small notebooks she carries with her everywhere.

Lisa shares a studio compound in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco with 7 other working artists. She has been featured in Bitch, Adorn, Country Living and ReadyMade Magazines and on numerous art, design and culture blogs. Lisa is also the co-owner and gallery curator for Rare Device in San Francisco.
www.lisacongdon.com

>>>> Lisa Congdon's work available to purchase online