i bet some of you were wondering where i’ve been lateley? not too far away actually, but between work, being sick, and life in general – i have totally slacked on updating here.

but i DO have big news, and it’s one of the reasons i have been away for so long (at least from here).

hubby and i are adding a tiny person to our family. yes… i am knocked up!

more to come, i promise!

i didn’t think i would, but here i am posting ANOTHER blog about adoption. this time for a different reason.

i saw this clip on the today show yesterday morning (you can also read about it HERE). i can’t believe how irritated i am about this. the summery of this whole story is is that this woman adopted a child, felt like she wasn’t able to ‘bond’ with him, and so decided to give him back.

i can understand her feeling frustrated about not having a bond, but i think this is incredibly selfish of this woman. it’s a fact that parents sometimes can’t even bond with their own biological children, but that doesn’t mean they just ‘give them away’. we’re talking about a PERSON here, not an object. children are not items that can be returned if they are defective or turn out to be something you don’t like. she states in the clip that she loves this child, and because she loves him that she’s doing what’s best for him. i have a hard time believing that she feels she is doing what’s best for him, but she’s doing what’s convenient for her.

i know what’s it’s like to not have a bond with your adopted family. it’s difficult for me to feel a connection to my parents and it always has. i felt like they abandoned me emotionally at a critical time in my life. i can imagine that this child (when they are old enough to conceptualize it) will feel similar to how i and many other adoptees feel. that there is something wrong with you because not only were you abandoned once, but TWICE. it’s a huge emotional strain and i feel horrible for this baby because not only is he being emotionally abandoned, but he’s being physically abandoned. she may have eased her confusion but in the process she dumped it all on this baby. in my own experience, though i don’t ‘connect’ with my parents, which makes me unhappy, i would have been doubly hurt, angry and have a feeling of total abandonment and rejection had they sent me back to korea.

i’m sure people who sympathize with her are saying, “what is she supposed to do?” i say, do your job. be a mother. be a parent. if you TRULY love this child you suck it up and give as much love as possible and UNCONDITIONALLY. parents aren’t allowed to ‘give up’. children don’t have a say in who they end up with. they have no choices and it’s horribly unfair and self serving for an individual to make this kind of decision.

what makes this even WORSE…. anita tedaldi (the woman at the center of this) wrote an article for the nytimes, We Can’t Trade In Our Children or Husbands, about this very subject, blasting parents for a similar situation. that article has been erased from the internet, but if you follow the link it will take you a copy of the article that melinda from chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com saved. (THANK YOU!)

as per the title of anita’s article – no, you CAN’T trade in your children and shame on you for doing so. i truly hope that the family that did end up with this baby love him completely – with no conditions attached.

—–

p.s. also read melinda’s post on the today show clip, where adam pertman from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute makes these three EXCELLENT points: 1) failure to bond is not just an adoption problem since it can happen with biological children, too; 2) adoption is not a “rental” where you just try it out; 3) sometimes it takes years to bond, and parents should stick it out for as long as they can.

this just cements my feelings about what a horrible situation this is.

i blogged a couple posts back about my tattoo itching and driving me insane! good news: the tattoo doesn’t itch anymore. bad news: it’s spread everywhere else and now i have HIVES. it’s been a really horrible couple weeks. itching and crying and feeling totally disgusting. the only bright spot is my hubby – who has been taking care of me, rubbing anti-itch cream on me and encouraging me to relax. ugh.

i don’t want to think about it so let’s move on to something fun! i’m a little bit of a font nerd and just discovered how to add a helvetica skin to my gmail and it’s so lovely. i love all things minimalist. drool.

you can find the tut. HERE on how to do this. now if i could only make everything else in my life helvetica.

i have many things to accomplish this weekend yet i’m here… writing. lol.  i don’t know what’s wrong with me!

i was recently invited to participate in a group show down in california and i’m debating whether or not i want to do it. i don’t have any new paintings since i went on my self imposed break. that time has been spent kind sketching, working, baking, taking care of kitty (who was sick recently) and wasting whatever time i have leftover. oh, and also making this for the hubby. (seriously, don’t judge me).

master shake is watching you…

anywho, i’m hunkering down this weekend and getting some actual work done. the list includes sewing, drawing up some contracts and getting to work on some new designs. the new designs are for a mystery client who contacted me asking for some illustrations for t-shirts. *gasp* for real… i’ll finally have some artwork on t-shirts?!?! i can’t tell you how many people have asked me when i was going to do this. well here you go.. i’m doing it. right now though, i can’t give details on it because well, i don’t know the details myself. the client is wanting to keep things under wraps and won’t divulge any info except for what i need to know. i dunno what this is all about, but what i’m designing is going to be super cute. i’ll be posting my progress on here later on.

i rarely get commissions like this. usually they are from single individuals who just want a small painting, which i’m happy to do. i don’t like drawing out silly contracts things like that because no one wants to read through that stuff (and most don’t). for something like this though, i like to be a little more business-y. haha. i use this book as a reference and highly recommend it to any other artists or designers who need a little guidance.

man, this book has so much good information in it. they come out with a new edition every few years, though i’m pretty sure this one is the newest. you can find the book HERE on amazon.com. it’s really mostly for designers, but definitely comes in handy for artists as well (like me).

ok. now i’m getting some work done. check it!

i randomly found this web comic. i’m in love. please check it out. it’s awesome. it almost makes me want to start my own web comic (but i’m lazy). i also spent all day yesterday reading all the comics because i’m a nerd.

enjoy (and go check it out for  real). go here: nedroid.com

… and i need some advice.

i’m almost certain that i am allergic to the ink used in two of my tattoos. boooo. i have no idea what to do about this, cuz guess what??? i can’t just make them go away!

i did a little research and apparently the companies that manufacture the different ink don’t usually do any tests or care whether or not they are hypoallergenic and most tattoo artists aren’t really aware of WHAT the ink is made of. this is sad news for me because that means i’m officially halting my want of more tattoos.

the one in the picture is the worst. it itches so bad ALL THE TIME and unfortunately i have no self control. i want to scratch it constantly. it swells up, then itches even more. the only thing stopping me from completely ripping the skin off my back is the fear of mutilating the tattoo itself. i’ve tried taking antihistamines and putting lotion on it and nothing is working. it’s so bad that i even caught myself rubbing my back against a wall, all baloo the bear style.

i need help. someone tell me what i can do to make the itching go away or i’m going to go crazy!!!

i try not to post blogs that are super personal. i mean, i talk about daily activities, things that interest me and things like that – but i try not to dig too deep into my personal life. this specific entry will be a little more personal though…

i saw this video earlier on cnn which i haven’t been able to stop thinking about. i tried to figure out a way to put the video on here, but wordpress is a little stubborn and i can’t seem to embed a video unless it’s coming from youtube or google or whatever. you can see the video HERE.

most likely i’ve mentioned somewhere in this blog that i’m adopted and that’s the reason why this really caught my eye. the girl in this video is adopted and was reunited with her biological family after ‘googling’ her own name and finding her information on an adoption registry. it’s hard for me to describe my feelings on this. they are mix of interest, hope and hopelessness, envy, bitterness and frustration. this is actually the second story like this that i’ve seen just today, which makes it even more frustrating.

though i haven’t always made it apparent around people i know, i’ve always internalized some really strong feelings about adoption and myself being an adoptee. there have been a lot of circumstances concerning my adoption that i haven’t had any control over, there’s always been a disconnect with my adoptive family (which isn’t their fault), and i’ve always felt like crucial and basic information that should be available has always been out of reach.

seeing these kind of stories stirs up all these emotions that sometimes i wish they wouldn’t. i wonder, “why can’t it be that easy for me?” well, i know the answers to that already (and there are a number of reasons).

anyway – i’m not saying that i don’t feel good about the girl in the video. she has every right to find out this information, as does anyone that’s adopted. i posted this link somewhere else and an acquaintance who is also adopted saw it, took it upon herself to do the same thing, and surprisingly discovered a whole bevy of information on her biological mother including a profile on facebook, myspace, and classmates.com (all within 5-1o minutes). it’s strange to think that a long lost parent, sibling or any family member may only be a facebook page away. but where do I start?

these options aren’t as easily open to me because of the nature of my adoption. this acquaintance seems stressed though about what she should do with this information – that she might be intruding on someone’s privacy. but i know what i would do (and this is what i told her and what i would tell any adoptee). if i had this history, this part of me that was readily available, i would take it and go as far as i could with it. i understand wanting to respect someone’s privacy, but that person made the decision for themselves AND you, which isn’t fair. adoptees have every right to know who they are and parents who choose to give up their children need to face the fact that their anonymity might be forfeited sometime in the future. they may feel the regret, the loss and the sadness of giving away a child, but they don’t know the feeling of having a whole part of your life kept from you, feelings of abandonment, and in many cases of overseas adoption (this applies to me) the anxiety of never feeling like you ‘fit in’ to any specific group.

ok… that’s all i have to say about that. i know there are other adoptees who feel similar to myself. surprisingly, i use to think it was just me, but i’ve discovered that i’m not alone. i’m up for a good conversation on this too. if you have anything to add, please feel free. i’m sure this won’t be the last time i bring this up.

the new shop has been doing pretty good. albeit, most of my sales have been off-site, but the online shop itself is definitely helping let people see what i have available. i just posted some new items on there as well.

check out the new items HERE.

other than that, i’ve scrapped the current project that i was working on and am moving onto something new. i’m going to be doing a series of ‘endangered species’ paintings. i actually have no idea what that really means, but i’ve been thinking about it for quite some time and decided that i should just go with it.

and now for some really random things: 1. i’ve recently become a vegetarian. if you want to know why, let me know and i’ll tell you. 2. please check out my very talented friend, nate luna, who i’ve turned on to big cartel. he’s just opened his own online shop and his work is all kinds of tattoo inspired, graffiti-ish, asianesque goodness. you can see his shop HERE. 3. check out this other really cool portland artist that i’ve been really into. i don’t know why i’ve never met or seen this guy before but it’s good stuff! he flip flops between doing these pretty hilarious and incredibly illustrative doodles to doing really understated and quite lovely figure/life drawings. check out his stuff at kungfutoast.blogspot.com.

ok.. enough randomness. i’m off to get some drawing done.

i don’t know if i’ve mentioned how awesome our pup is. he’s growing up (which is sad) and turning into a pretty great dog. he has his moments when he feels like being a raging brat, but most of the time he is adorable, fun, sweet and i love him more every day. i can’t believe he’s already 9 months old!

he’s been pretty easy to train and picks things up really quickly. we were really intent on having a well behaved dog and started training immediately after getting him. some things though, we just teach him because we think it’s funny. we discovered that we inadvertently taught him to chase his tail when we say “go get it!”. we honestly didn’t mean to, but whenever we saw him chasing and pulling on his own tail, we’d cheer him on by saying that and now he’s associated it as a command. oops. :)

anyway – just thought i would post this video for everyone else to enjoy. and yes, that voice in the background that sounds like a 12 year old girl is me.

ok… i thought i would let some of you know so far how the shopping cart switch has gone. a couple things… 1.) i had my first sale the first day i had it up. now i don’t know if that means anything but when i had my shop on etsy, i only had two sales and it was a couple months after i had opened it. i’m sure part of that has to do with the fact that i’m involving myself more with the new shop and putting more of an effort into marketing. but we’ll wait a while longer and sees what happens. 2.) my traffic on big cartel is WAY higher on the new site. i don’t really know what to contribute that to, though i know there are a number of factors i can think of. so far, things are looking good though and with my first sale, my switch (big cartel is a little higher priced than etsy, but not by much) has already paid for itself…  for the next four months. yay!

now a treat for all you lovelies… as part of a virtual celebration of the opening of my new online store, i am having a special!!!!! i love specials!! i hope you do to! for those of you who order anything, use the coupon code ‘SWEET’ when checking out and you’ll get 15% off of your whole order! weeee!!!!!!! and wow, sorry for my excessive use of exclamation marks. got a little too excited there.

!

follow the link to the shop! – www.kimmiehutchins.bigcartel.com

ok, i’ve had a lot of people asking me suddenly why i switched from etsy to big cartel. i think this is mainly because etsy is soooo well known and big cartel is, well.. not. i thought it would a good idea to post exactly why i switched over and what the pros (for me) are. also, be prepared for lots of screenshots!

first off, etsy is good. it’s a great site and it’s just right for a lot of people. i’m not hating on etsy. it just wasn’t right for me, was not easy for me to use and was a little restricting. i like things a certain way. i love really clean design without a lot of hoopla going on. as you can see, this is what my etsy shop looked like with lots of text and info. that’s great for some, but much of that info just seemed unecessary to me. i don’t think it’s important or helpful for people to know how many views each item has had, how many pieces i’ve sold, when i listed it, etc etc. (also, do you like how you can see the tab for ‘capture screen shot with…’. i’m computer retarded sometimes and google has become my best friend. no joke.)

here is a screenshot of my new shop on big cartel. for me this is a lot cleaner. all of the links that are in the right panel only show up IF i want them there. the shop is very simple, but if you were someone who likes a lot of flash and craziness going on, big cartel is completely css/html driven, meaning you have tons of control on how it looks. you’re not tied down to a pre-set format like etsy. big cartel feels like a real shopping cart or can even be used as a self standing website if you want. if you already own your own domain name, you can use it for big cartel. as far as i know – that isn’t an option on etsy.

when you want to look at an item on etsy, it brings you to a page like this. i felt like it was a little redundant to have an ‘add to cart’ button on both the top and bottom of the page.

below is what it looks like on big cartel. it’s actually not that much different. i just like the format better. one small difference though is that if you want to zoom on the image, all you have to do is click on it and a larger picture opens up on the same page. with etsy, it will open the image in a new window or tab.

now THIS is what was really the big ticket for me. what do people do if they have a question or want to contact you? with etsy, if you or a customer wants to email you, they have to set up an etsy profile in order to do so. one thing that i hate more than anything is having to set up profiles and dole out my email knowing that i’ll probably never visit whatever site it is again. yes, it only takes a minute, but it just seems silly to me. you always have the option of listing your email on your profile or shop message, but i think most people would agree that that kind of information should be kept private if possible.

now let’s look at big cartel. what do people do if they want to contact you from here? they click on the contact link, or in my case the ‘give me a shout!’ link, and it brings them to this page. yes, a real place where you can send an actual message. none of that ‘creating a profile’ stuff. and the best part is that it comes straight to my personal email. i don’t have to list it or worry about giving it out yet i don’t have to deal with logging into big cartel in order to reply or correspond. wonderful!

there are lots of other reasons why big cartel works better for me. they have more payment options (you don’t HAVE to have a paypal account to pay for something), i can create my own pages, the etsy banner/logo is not splayed all over the site and i can embed links. i think why this works better for me is that big cartel is really tailored for artists, musicians and designers. it has more of a professional feel. etsy is fantastic, but it really is meant for crafters (and i’m not knocking on crafters either. there are some really AMAZING people on there). i’m going to be honest though – i’m not a crafter. i don’t consider what i do crafting and i always felt weird posting stuff on etsy because technically, not all of my stuff is handmade… by me. yes, i paint everything, but i’m going to other companies for my prints, merch, etc. i don’t have time, energy or the creativity to hand make all that stuff.

there are cons to switching over as well, but i suppose i’m willing to deal since the pros outweigh them in my eyes. anyway – that’s it. maybe that was helpful for you? maybe not. but now you know why i switched. etsy – you treated me well, but i’ve moved on. i still love you though and will visit you and your amazing artists, crafters, designers and shops often. please don’t hate me.

wow. i’ve done an absolutely horrible job keeping this up. i’m just now getting back to painting and am working on some new stuff. it’s a lot different, a lot more detailed and much larger pieces. when i start finishing some stuff up i will post it up here.

in the meantime here are some pieces of newer artwork (like i promised in my last post). these are details of some of the pieces from the tiny show.

yeah! there’s a lot more too, but i’m far too lazy and tired right now to post all of them. all the ones you see here are for sale online though! and that brings me to my next subject…

i’ve officially moved my shop from etsy to bigcartel. etsy is/was great, but i was feeling a little confined by it. i like things super clean and sleek and there was just so much stuff going on on that site and i just wasn’t into it. it was pretty evident as well by my total lack of interest in it. i didn’t update or market it whatsoever.

bigcartel fits me better, i have a lot more freedom with it and i have a feeling that i’ll be keeping it up a lot more. check it out! and check out some of the new stuff i’ve posted on there. it’s all super affordable. i’ll be adding more prints on there as well.

okay… that is all for tonight. someone needs to get some sleep.

oh  – and here is the link to my new shop! ——- kimmiehutchins.bigcartel.com

hi folks. sorry i haven’t been updating.  i’ll be posting some work on here soon. xo

i have kept good on my promise to take a break and haven’t touched a paintbrush in two weeks! yes! but i have been keeping my hands busy busy. my way of relaxing is baking and i am officially back to baking every weekend.

since they’ve been in season, i’ve been gorging on ranier cherries. as the weeks progress i notice the bags of cherries at the store keep getting bigger and the price keeps coming down. it’s mainly because they’ve passed the peak this season and the cherries aren’t so good anymore. it hasn’t stopped me from buying them though and picking out the best cherries to eat. i was feeling bad about throwing away the rest so i decided to make these mini cherry pies that i baked in my muffin pan. most cherry pies call for sour cherries, but with the raniers they are still good. a lot sweeter than a normal cherry pie, but yummy!

today i made chocolate chip kahlua biscotti. this is the first time i’ve made biscotti and it turned out great (even with me tooling around with the recipe). this was originally suppose to be cinnamon biscotti, but i wanted to be creative. the kahlua flavor is super subtle but added an extra sort of creamy sweetness to it.

you might notice that the second picture looks a lot nicer than the first picture. i’m still learning how to photograph food and am going to try in earnest to start cataloging my baking adventures. i’m going to try to take GOOD photos too… but bear with me while i figure things out!

i rarely post recipes, but if you want it – let me know because i’m happy to share! now off to eat…

last night the hubs and i went out for one of our last outings with our friend stef. after the ending of a very long relationship and some bad luck, she’s decided to move back to her home town in idaho. why someone would want to go from portland to idaho is beyond me, but she’s really dead set on it so i wish her all the luck in the world!

after getting together we hummed and hawed about where we wanted to go and finally set on going to the goodfoot lounge since we could just walk there from where we were at. i haven’t been there since i had my art show there a couple months ago (which i feel bad about). they have a brand new show up featuring a couple local artists and i was probably being really rude because i was spending more time looking at the artwork than listening to our friend. whoops.

one of the two artists they were showing was matt schlosky’s work. i’ve seen this kids stuff around quite a bit and have always been iffy on my feelings about it. i was feeling the same way last night too… i mean there was some great stuff, but then there was some not so great stuff. he had a few large scale pieces of artwork that were cool except for the fact that they were drawn/painted on old ikea cardboard. seriously? i mean, yeah – they were cool designs, but… they were on… cardboard. i’m all for using recycled materials but i thought that was a little ridiculous. do i sound like an asshole for saying that? probably… but it doesn’t matter what i think. there were actually a couple of them marked sold, so more power to him!

anyway – his other stuff was really awesome. so awesome in fact that i purchased my very FIRST piece of art. holy crap! not that i don’t own art but for as long as i’ve been painting, showing, perusing, curating and promoting art i have never actually laid down money for a piece. weird, i know – but this was the first time i felt compelled to purchase something. actually, what i did was i harassed adam for an hour straight until he caved and said we could buy it. that makes him sound like a controlling, jerky husband (which he is not), but he just wasn’t sure since we’re trying to save our pennies for traveling at the end of this year and it seems like the more we try to save, the more we end up spending.

bird vs. worm

this is the piece i bought. this is a bad picture of it that i stole from goodfoot’s website, but i promise i’ll take a snap of it when i pick it up at the end of the month. i was actually eyeballing a tiny tiny painting (because i’m obsessed with all things tiny), but this one was 4 times the size and only a few bucks more. i’ll also mention that this piece was severely under-priced. most of his pieces were. sometimes i just don’t understand how other artists set their prices.. it just doesn’t make sense to me!

i’m fairly happy with my purchase and have decided now that buying art is like getting tattoos… or eating chips… or saying four letter words or something. you can’t stop at just one. i’ll have to put any more art purchasing off until we go/get back from our adventures at the end of this year, but i’ve definitely got the itch now.