dots + photos

A fun little post of us on the Renegade Craft Fair blog!

thebocketstore — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:32:00 -0700

see the full post here!

Thanks guys we love ya! -Sarah (+misha)

To Austin we go for the Renegade Craft Fair!! We’re...

thebocketstore — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:11:17 -0700

To Austin we go for the Renegade Craft Fair!!

We’re driving from Los Angeles to the Petrified Forest National Park to Canyon de Chelly National Monument to Buffalo Gap to Austin to Big Bend National Park to Marfa

We love visiting National Parks/Monuments and have their annual pass so we can freely hop from one to the other! Are you ready for tons of pictures…? - Sarah

Packing for Austin! My cars such a good little clown car....

thebocketstore — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:50:00 -0700

Packing for Austin! My cars such a good little clown car. Awww.

The road trip itinerary will be coming up next. Stay tuned. - Sarah

Austin Renegade Craft Fair

mishaashton — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:09:24 -0700

Austin Texas here we come!!! After a fun weekend of sales at Unique LA, we are packing up the car and headed east with the dots and the photos in haul. We plan to take a few days, camping our way across and exploring National Parks.

We should be rolling into Austin, TX on Thursday, just in time to see our friend Dan Dyer play at the Continental Club. If you are in Austin, go check him out, he is playing every Thursday in the month of May. ALSO if you are in Austin, of course come by our booth and visit us and bring all of your friends. We are booth #6, just look for the big pink star on the map below!!!

- - -

Dan Dyer | Continental Club | Thursday, May 17th @ 8:30p

http://www.dandyer.com/site/

- - -

Renegade Craft Fair, Austin TX | May 19th - 20th 2012, 11-7pm | Palmer Event Center

http://www.renegadecraft.com/austin

Unique LA - Spring Show

mishaashton — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:19:07 -0700

Yay Unique LA is coming up in less than two weeks! We are sharing a booth and are going to have a fun booth display to showcase all our wonderful art. You can find us on the map below at booth #203.

Get ready everybody! May 12 + 13. California Market Center in Downtown LA. Check out State of Unique for all the fun vendors and goodies that will be there.

We also have 2 tickets to give away for free entrance to the show. So any LA folks interested, email Misha and we will pick two people at random. (misha@mishaashton.com).

ALSO, if you are not in Los Angeles, check out our Tour 2012 page to see when we will be in your hood. - misha+sarah

www.mishaashton.com

www.thebocketstore.com

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans Jim Russell Rare...

mishaashton — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:35:00 -0700

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans

Jim Russell Rare Records

I almost don’t want to share this find with anyone, and keep it to myself forever. But if I must… Sarah and I stumbled upon this amazing record shop at the far east end of Magazine Street. Bins and bins of 45’s and 32’s, walls with ceiling to floor shelves, completely filled with beautiful old records. Of course with an amazing jazz collection, probably the best you will find just about anywhere. They were only open for another 10 minutes when we walked through the door, but it was enough time to be in complete awe, and to find two fantastic albums to take home with me. -misha

Lionel Richie, Cant Slow Down

The Great Benny Goodman

1837 Magazine Street New Orleans, LA

Still going back in time to the DooNanny! Time travel is...

thebocketstore — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:33:00 -0700

Still going back in time to the DooNanny! Time travel is fun!

DAY 7-14 - Monday, March 26th-April 1st, 2012 - Seale, Alabama

This is us making our wonderful 16th Annual DooNanny booth. We dragged pieces of wood from the fire pit, carting them back to our booth in the hot sun. Hammered and nailed together an incredibly cool wall, painted it white and were instantly jealous of this booth for our future shows. The art that both Misha and I make is so colorful that we decided to give it a neutral clean background so everything would pop and stand out from afar. After we saw how cool the white wall was, we rummaged around Butch’s barn and found tables, chairs, chandeliers, candlesticks holders, and lamps to paint white as well. We found perfectly chopped logs for display too. Oh man, it was a blast! Some of the other people around that week were probably thinking that was our art, but they had a big surprise coming!! -Sarah

We’re going back in time now, to the...

thebocketstore — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:23:00 -0700

We’re going back in time now, to the DooNanny…

I’ve been so incredibly busy doing my non-dot freelance job and painting the dots that I’ve gotten WAY behind Misha in my posting. Let’s change that now! And dont forget to scroll down past all of the New Orleans posts to see all of the rest of our many posts about the DOO.

DAY 7 - Monday, March 26th 2012 - Seale, Alabama

I fell in love with this floor. I mean come on, how can you not love such beautifully painted shapes and colors?!

This is inside Misha’s uncle Butch’s house and where the DooNanny was happening. When you wind your way through the dirt roads you see his art everywhere, including the Museum of Wonder. Just absolutely amazing!

I still can’t stop thinking about this floor. -Sarah

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans Abandoned School If...

mishaashton — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:33:02 -0700

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans

Abandoned School

If you know me at all, you know that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE photographing broken down, rusty, dilapidated things. While Sarah and I were driving around the neighborhoods looking for my old home, we stumbled upon this little gem. I was really hoping it was my old school, Robert E Lee Elementry, but it was not. Sadly we could not get inside the school, but I still managed to take a few rolls of the outside. I cannot wait to get these developed, they will make the perfect addition to the “abandoned” chapter of my New Orleans book, which will probably be Volume 3 in my photo book series, Adventures in Lomography. (Volume 1 is New York, which I self published in Fall 2011, you can check it out here.) -misha

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans Snowballs at Plum...

mishaashton — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:14:00 -0700

DAY 15 - Tuesday, April 2nd - New Orleans

Snowballs at Plum Street Snowball

After we found my old house, which was in a bit of a sad state, I took Sarah to my favorite snowball shop. I am always amazed to hear that snowballs are not a tourist attraction. Most people have never heard of them. They may look like simple snow cones, but don’t be mistaken. Snowballs are shaved ice (not crushed), with many many choices of flavoring, and smothered in condensed milk. They also come in a cup, instead of a puny little cone. I got a blackberry cream snowball. Talk about a sugar high, and yet still oh so perfect for a hot 80 degree day. (dont forget your cash)

1300 Burdette Street New Orleans, LA

DAY 15-19 - Tuesday, April 2nd - Saturday, April 7th 2012 - New...

mishaashton — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:52:07 -0700

DAY 15-19 - Tuesday, April 2nd - Saturday, April 7th 2012 - New Orleans, LA

So we are now in New Orleans, Louisiana. Here to eat, explore, take photos for my next book, and sell our art at the Freret Market.

Tuesday, April 2nd - O’Henrys

Personally, my favorite part about Nola is all the yummy yummy food. Today we were driving around searching for one of the houses I lived in when I was a kid. I turned down a wrong street or two and happened upon O’Henrys. My parents use to take my brother and I here for foot long hot dogs and peanuts. The best thing about this restaurant, which actually appears to be a sports bar, is that you get to throw you peanut shells on the floor. Unfortunately for Sarah and I, they had just swept that morning, so very few shells were on the floor.

Dont be deseved by the sports bar look, the food is great. You can fill yourself up on side dishes that are only $2.50 each, and pints of Abita Amber for only $2. We had the red beans and rice and crawfish balls, along with our peanuts and beer.

634 South Carrollton Avenue, New Orleans, LA

Fried Shrimp Po Boys at the Verti Mart After we found a dry,...

mishaashton — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:53:13 -0700

Fried Shrimp Po Boys at the Verti Mart

After we found a dry, safe place to sleep, we headed straight for the Verti Mart. Mmmmmmm, fried shrimp po boys and Abita Beer. It may not look like much of a place for eatin’ from the outside, but if you don’t go here at least once when you are in Nola, it would be a sad trip indeed. Sarah and I ate here our first day and our last day in town. Make sure you get it “dressed” and bring cash. -misha

1201 Royal Street, French Quarter, New Orleans

(we will just have to come back to Sarah’s DooNanny blog...

mishaashton — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:49:00 -0700

(we will just have to come back to Sarah’s DooNanny blog posts, she is working hard on CG stuff and they aren’t giving her much time for art stuff. so we will go on ahead with my blog posts for now.)

DAY 14 - Monday, April 2nd 2012 - Seale, AL to New Orleans, LA

This was a very sad day indeed. It felt like an end to a very long and amazing journey. We made a large yummy breakfast, packed the car, said our good byes and hit the road.

We had a 6 hour drive from Seale, AL to New Orleans, LA and you would think that after driving for a week across country, anywhere from 6-13 hours a day, this would be an easy drive. Well it wasn’t, I think we switched driver every hour to hour and a half. About 2 hours from our destination, we drove head first into an immense storm. There was constant thunder and lighting, wind gusts pushing all over the road and the rain was so heavy we couldn’t hardly see 20 feet in front of us. It was raining a little less when we rolled into New Oreleans, but the lighting was still flashing every minute or two. Lightning storms is one of the things I miss most about living in the south, that and fire flies.

When we got to our campground, the site was flooded and the mosquitoes were out in full force. We ended up having to drive around from hostel to hostel until we found one with two beds in the same room. Even though we were out the money from the campground, we had a dry place to sleep for the rest of our stay. Which was great because it rained for the next three nights. We ended up staying at the India House Hostel, it is a small house just off of Canal, a little north of the French Quarter. Everything seemed pretty clean and the best part was that people weren’t partying till the break’a break’a dawn, so we got some good nights sleep.

After we were all settled in on the first night, we went out for some good ole nola food and beers. Overall it was a good day, and we were both excited to start the next leg of our trip. -misha

DAY 13 - Sunday, April 1st 2012 - Seale, Alabama My entire time...

mishaashton — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:49:18 -0700

DAY 13 - Sunday, April 1st 2012 - Seale, Alabama

My entire time here has been absolutely amazing and this day was just the icing on the cake. We had our art set up until about 2pm, then packed up and chilled for the rest of the day. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a nice warm breeze. I pretty much spent the rest of my afternoon laying in this hammock, napping and hanging out with our new friends AJ and Jeff. We met them Friday at the Possum Trot, but hadn’t any real time to hang out until Sunday. Absolutely sweet guys, I cant wait to hang out with them again when Sarah and I make it out to New York in June.

Other than lounging around, Sarah and I put in a good couple of hours cleaning up the community kitchen and cooking. We had a wonderful doonanny family dinner, followed by a bit more lounging in the hammock and roasting marshmallows by the fire. Seriously an epic EPIC adventure was had in Seale, Alabama this March Two Thousand and Twelve. -misha

Here is a list of just a few of the amazingly wonderful new friends we made, click on their names to check out their websites. Also, since I didn’t get around to taking many photos, check out the lovely Ami Worthen’s photos on her flickr site here.

Zachariah Chanin

Rob7

The Lasters, Charles, Grace Kelly and Ruby Elvis

(if i left anyone out, I apologize)

DAY 12 - Saturday, March 31st 2012 Nighttime at the...

mishaashton — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:13:55 -0700

DAY 12 - Saturday, March 31st 2012

Nighttime at the DooNanny

After all of the art selling is finished for the day, we get to close up shop and party down with the rest of them. The band Aotearoa was on stage when we made it down. They are a two man band who have been on the road playing their music around the country for the past 14 months. We met them earlier in the day and ended up trading art for cd’s, awesome.

Sarah and I sat around the bonfire listening to the next few bands, before it was time for the burning of the DooNanny. A giant wooden structure of a, well, a “doonanny”. One is built every year and before the last band goes on, it gets set ablaze. This year, Butch rode a zipline down towards it, lighting it on fire with a flaming bow and arrow. It was quite a site. The rest of my evening was spent dancing around with my family and friends, to the music of Mad Tea Party, Screaming Js, Jenny Juice, and the Butter Holler string band. What a great night. -misha

This years DooNanny poster. Cant wait to get mine hung up in my...

mishaashton — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 11:08:00 -0700

This years DooNanny poster. Cant wait to get mine hung up in my studio.

DAY 12 - Saturday, March 31st 2012 Daytime at the DooNanny Well...

mishaashton — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:25:50 -0700

DAY 12 - Saturday, March 31st 2012

Daytime at the DooNanny

Well GOOD MORNING RAIN, and thunder and lighting. I think the whole camp woke up when the storm started just before dawn. Sadly, this was a bit of a set back for the art sales, but it made for a great morning. We stumbled down to the kitchen where I found my sister and her husband cooking breakfast and wearing trash bags as ponchos. BEST thing to wake up to on a rainy day. hahahaha. LOVE IT, my sister is so friggin adorable with her thick southern accent and a garbage bag rain coat. It was raining quite hard though, there were rivers flowing through the kitchen. At one point a bolt of lighting hit the metal roof of the kitchen and a girl standing near one of the stoves got shocked. Dont worry though, she was okay, just majorly shocked.

The rain eventually let up around 11am and the sun came out and with the sun came the DooNanniers (i dont think that’s a word, but lets make it one). Sarah and I had a great day of sales, met tons of locals, regulars to the show, more artist. As fun as the art show portion of the event was, next year I plan to spend less time in my booth and more time experiencing the event and hanging out with people. We missed most of the music, the food, hoolahoop lessons, etc. We could just barely hear the music from where our booth was, check out this awesome line-up we missed out on:

Dan Dyer 12:00 PM
Morgan Greer 12:45 PM
Jake Fussell 1:30 PM
Muleskinner MacQueen Trio 2:15 PM
Fire Mountain 3:00 PM
Rebecca Gates 4:00 PM
Dead Fingers 5:00 PM
Doc Dailey & Magnolia Devil 6:00 PM
Aotearoa 7:00 PM
Mad Tea Party 8:00 PM
Screaming Js 9:00 PM
Jenny Juice 10:00 PM
Butter Holler 11:00 PM

DAY 8-11 - Tuesday-Friday, March 27th+30th 2012 DooNanny +...

mishaashton — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:01:00 -0700

DAY 8-11 - Tuesday-Friday, March 27th+30th 2012

DooNanny + Possum Trot in Seale, Alabama

We spent the whole week leading up to the DooNanny building an amazing booth to sell our art in. Each morning we got up and worked on it until just before sunset. In the evenings, we hung out down by the kitchen, getting to know all the other artist who showed up early. We had community dinners and sat around a big fire pit chatting and having fun. Tuesday night was our first night hanging out with everyone. We joined in on a game of Mexican Train (an awesomely fun domino game), with Wesley and Zach, who we ended up hanging out with most of the nights. Ends up that Zach is my 2nd cousin, older brother to my uncle Butch’s daughter Maggie.
We also spent a lot of our spare time at the Texas Camp, with Jack Sanders (my uncle butchies very best good friend from Austin, TX), Dan Dyer (Jacks musician friend from Austin) and Liz and David (Texans now living in West Virginia).

Wednesday night, while we were getting ready to crawl into our tent, the zipper broke beyond repair. Thankfully Zach’s friend Matt (another person we hung out with for much of our time) had shown up that day, so Zach was moving out of the camper and into the giant tee-pee. We were so much happier in the camper, especially when the rains came. It started pouring Friday afternoon, just in time for the Possum Trot. The night before the DooNanny, the Possum Trot, a weekly auction in Seale, AL, is transformed into an all night party. When we showed up late with the Texas Camp, there was live music and people dancing in the rain. I hid in the auction house until I felt a little less like a drown rat. The auction house has two rooms, the large room with bench seating where the auction is held, and the gallery room. Most of the items in the gallery are Butch’s art, others are found items, like arrow heads and bones, the rest is vintage furniture.

Each year, my uncle Tommy has a big shrimp boil in the parking lot. I got to be the cashier for the night, which was great because I got to hang out with him all night, but also wonderful because we were under a canopy and I was wrapped in towels keeping as dry as possible. For $10, you got a large plate of shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes, SUPER YUM. -misha

DAY 7 - Monday, March 26th 2012 - Seale, Alabama SIGH. I would...

mishaashton — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:20:00 -0700

DAY 7 - Monday, March 26th 2012 - Seale, Alabama

SIGH. I would have loved to have slept in much much longer since I had been sick since I left Portland, but I was just to anxious to see my uncle Butch and to see his place in day light. When you pull up to his place off of Poorhouse Rd., there is a long dirt road, passing a small little lake on either side, then up past The Museum of Wonder and Butch’s workshop, past my grandfather Bishop’s house and through the woods to Butch’s. I didn’t really get around to taking many photos of his place, but you can see an article the New York Times did on him and the Doonanny a few years back. His home is even more amazing in person.

While Sarah slept, Butch and I strolled down to the portion of his property where the Doonanny is held. There is a small dirt road with a few scattered permanent booth displays already built and waiting for the regular/returning artist to show up and fill them with art. I was so amazed to see this and made a note to convince Sarah that we needed a permanent structure of our own. At the end of the road it is like a little town of folk artist. There is an outdoor kitchen, roughly 50-75 feet in length, 25 feet wide, with about a 20 foot ceiling. There is the “gourmet” kitchen that is for cooking food to sell to the general public on the actual day of the event (Saturday) and the community kitchen, which is for the artist to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Two huge fridges, two gas stoves, sinks for washing up, a hibachi style “social” grill, and a 10x10 foot grill. Also in the kitchen area, but not under cover, are about 6 or 7 permanent tables with permanent stools. During the first few days we were there, Rob7 built a community coffee hut, with a two pot coffee maker, lots and lots of coffee grounds, and flavoring station with liquors, sugars, sweet mixes like nutmeg, cayenne and cacao (that is the only mixture I can remember). Oh yeah, there was also a double decker bus that was gutted and turned into a dining hall.

For keeping clean, there was the spa. One private shower, three community showers that were each just separated with a sheet. Two bath tubs, also separated by a sheet, but both structures completely surrounded with a permanent wooden structure. The showers had 5 gallon buckets overhead with shower spouts affixed to the bottom. The water for the showers are heated by wood fire and either hand pumped into each bucket (by you or a friend) or if you find the pump isn’t working, which it never was each time I went to shower, you fill up a one gallon bucket, climb a ladder and slowly fill up your shower bucket. I must say, this is a pretty amazing way to shower. I just wish I had gotten a chance to shower at night with the stars overhead. Next year.

On the lower level of the property, down by the lake, there is a music stage, for the many DooNanny bands to play, with a small wooden dance floor in front. Further out in the field is a giant fire pit, surrounded by chairs and couches. This is were we spent most of our nights. When Sarah woke up, our first task was to help haul and stack wood to the pit. Across the lake is the camping area, with a giant tee-pee and about 20 or so other camp areas.

Sadly, I only took a few pictures the entire time we were in Alabama, but I will make sure to post links to other peoples photos in another post, that way you get a real feel for the event. That said, isn’t this the most precious kitty ever. This is my uncles cat who lives in the woods around his house. He has one fucked up eye and one of the mornings he was meowing for food, I came out to find he had been in a fight with some other creature, but he could care less. He just wanted a scratch behind his ears and a bowl full of food. -misha

DAY 5+6 - Saturday+Sunday, March 24th+25th 2012 Somewhere in...

mishaashton — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 06:58:00 -0700

DAY 5+6 - Saturday+Sunday, March 24th+25th 2012

Somewhere in Texas to The Woodlands, TX

We took our time driving through Texas towards The Woodlands, where we were to stay with my Aunt Nancy and her family. We stopped in this cute little German town called Fredricksburg, to take a quick stroll and explore . Later we stopped in Austin, Texas for some Torchys Tacos and some Intelligentsia coffee at Franks. Hot tacos and hot coffee were probably not the best idea for the hot hot day in a muggy car, but it was well worth it. mmmmmm tacos. This was the shortest drive of our trip, about 6 hours. After we got to my aunts house, we chilled for a bit and then went out to dinner with the whole family, then stayed up chatting with my aunt until about one in the morning.

The Woodlands, TX to Seale, Alabama
Even though we had a 13 hour drive ahead of us, we slept in and were very slow moving getting out the door. My aunt also had us pull out some of our totes so she could go through and buy art. As we were putting things away, she called one of her neighbors over who bought some art as well.

I think we finally got on the road about noon. We had another long hot drive across Texas, stopping in Baton Rouge at the Apple store to see if anything could be done about Sarah’s computer. Sadly, it was dead and she had to buy herself a new one (which was in the plans over the next few months anyways, just really bad timing). We rolled into Seale, AL at about 2:30am (central time). Since we got in so late, my uncle let us sleep up at the house, rather than setting up a tent in the dark. The last few hours of the drive were hard, but totally worth it when we got to crawl into the uber comfy California King. -misha