abbyabby is abby repeated

BAGS ARE ON THE WAY!

2009-07-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Hello patient followers. Today we picked up the prototype bag and it looks great! A few more logistics and we can put them into production. In the mean time, we are working on a pre-order form to make them available on the website, though the first batch of bags will not be ready to ship to you until August. The pre-order option though, will give us a better idea of which prints are more desirable as bags, and we will order accordingly. Stay tuned for further pre-order info, and I promise to post it as soon as possible. Good things come to those who wait.

RED, WHITE, and TRUCKS

2009-07-10T07:44:00.001-07:00

The Red Trucks made the road trip all the way to the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, California in time to Celebrate with Debbie on her Birthday which also happens to be the 4th of July! Three cheers for the Red, White, and Trucks, and AbbyAbby Birthday to Debbie!!!

ABBYABBY vs. T.T.G.B.I.T.N. (Things That Go Bump In The Night)

2009-07-07T04:40:00.001-07:00

If per chance you are one of those people concerned by the notion that maybe, probably, more likely than not, that there are wild creatures lurking under your bed, in the dark recesses of your closet then perhaps you need to be protected by a force field of AbbyAbby BEASTS, 100% guaranteed to fend off the boogie man and other night crawlers.

2009-07-06T08:58:00.001-07:00

The Best Ink Bears Repetition

Posted by Norton on Mon, Jul 6, 2009

0 Comments

Our dear friend Abby Manock is never short on creative juices, and this time it serves to lay down a considerable amount of ink across a whole new demographic. With an uncanny instinct for sustainable style and color trends, Abby has created a line of fabrics employing her typically friskymotifs. It’s classic Manock design in an unsuspected context.

Art for print is actually a very important Vermont tradition (many of us Contrarians lived there at one point or another; some still do). We lay claim to the settings for some of Norman Rockwell’s great works, and timeless classics such as Goodnight Moon and The Secret Garden were illustrated in the Green Mountain State. Obviously, these works achieved phenomenal success, and their creators were able to share their talents with a very broad population. The financial sustainability of a successful illustration or design work finds it’s best example in folks like Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Giesel or Charles Schultz, commonly listed among top-earning dead celebrities. So Abby is in good company among entrepreneurs who laid down their legacy on their own terms and lead creative lives until they went to the Great Art Supply Store in the Sky.

The great thing about living in a sort of creative vacuum that Vermont tends to foster is that creative people who come from there learn to be essentially multimedia mavens. Take local favorite James Kochalka (very supportive of Abby’s new project) — a painter, comic book artist, teacher, and recording artist/performer. He’s gotten his name out there on many different platforms while, apparently, having a great time.

In a post-Warhol world, art can no longer be subjected to clear delineations of “high” and “low” -brow compartmentalization. The nature of self-promotion, and indeed, relevance, calls for a more inclusive approach than polarizing work into either matted photos of mist-laden barns or a reconstruction of the same subject in gum wrappers installed in the Whitney.

A couple weeks prior to Seven Days‘ write-up of Abby’s project, they ran an article addressing criticism of the Vermont Arts Council’s lack of support for professional artists. My illustration for the article — a self-portrait — is laden with unintentional but unavoidable irony, as I now live in New York, seeking a community that will support a career in print communication. I often felt a lack of resources and validation while developing my career in Vermont in the years following college: is it just the Vermont Arts Council, or is it an overarching attitude in general towards artists in the state? Frankly, I detected this attitude towards Abby’s new project in the feature about her – the tone read to me that Abby’s “fine” art had been shelved for a cheaper attempt to bring home the bacon (I will note here that Seven Days, a print medium, has been complicit in their support of my illustration work, and I appreciate that).

The fact of the matter is, artists need to make money. Money buys paint, rents the studio, pays the student loans, and literally buys bacon (I don’t know about you, but I personally require a high-protein diet). And if I, like many people, can’t afford to purchase enough originals to cover my walls, I would certainly be delighted to fill my world with beautiful curtains and pillows made from Abby’s festive fabrics.

Beyond reducing print media and Abby’s newest work as simply business, the real issue is about an artist’s ability to create work that is valuable and accessible. Most Vermont artists-in-exile attempt to carry Bread and Puppet’s baton, outlined in their definitive Cheap Art Manifesto. Abby’s fabric line is wonderfully carrying on that tradition of art for the people, and hopefully funding the next round of ink. If Abby’s creative past says anything about her future, the juices are going to keep flowing, and we have a lot more great work to look forward to.

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Keep up with Susan's whipsmart banter at: www.thecontrarianmedia.com. From all of us at AbbyAbby, thanks Sue, for this awesome shout out! Keep rockin' Sister.

2009-07-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Best Ink Bears Repetition

Posted by Norton on Mon, Jul 6, 2009

0 Comments

A POET'S DESK

2009-07-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Look closely and you will see the Grey Trucks peering out from underneath the well used keyboard of our dear friend, poet, author, and illustrator, Nathaniel Bellows. We sincerely recommend you check out his debut collection of poems, Why Speak? (W.W. Norton). Perfectly Haunting.

GREEN ACORN WINDOW SHADE

2009-06-26T07:36:00.001-07:00

Hello Fabric Land. Here at the AbbyAbby headquarters new product test facility, we are listening to Thriller and brainstorming about new products to make with our patterns. We have already decided on a shoulder bag and pillows in two sizes, but have been seriously thinking about window treatments. So we had one shade made to see what it would look like. What do you all think?

ANNE AND THE BLUE BOTTLES

2009-06-25T08:17:00.001-07:00

Our dear friend Anne plans to use the blue bottle fabric as part of the decorating scheme at her wedding celebration in September, but until then, she'll be wearing it as a moo moo dancing wildly around the yard! Both applications get the AbbyAbby official golden stamp of approval.

BETHIE AND THE YELLOW BEASTS

2009-06-24T04:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Ho There, this is AbbyAbby reporting from Fabric Land.

Top news this morning are the photos sent in from our friend Bethie in Seattle, who lives not far from the factory where AbbyAbby fabric is printed. We plan to visit Bethie and the factory when we are out that way in July. Thanks to Jeff for documenting.

AMERICAN ABBYABBY

2009-06-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hello Fabric Land!

Giving a shout out to our friend James Kochalka who gave us a shout out in his blog this morning. THANKS JAMES! For those of you who don't know James, he's a Superstar that draws a comic strip every day of things that happen in his life. Check out his daily comic at www.americanelf.com. He also writes zillions of fantastic songs and he's a really good dancer. James was just telling me yesterday about how he hacked into his Nintendo and changed the pixels of Super Mario to look like himself, the American Elf. He also had a great idea about a project you can do with a piece of AbbyAbby fabric. He suggests finding an old painting canvas, and covering it with the fabric to hang on the wall. Here at AbbyAbby, we think this is a great idea too, and are working on a prototype so that we can walk you through the process step by step in a future blog entry, so stay tuned!

Our First Customer!

2009-06-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Nina Johnson of Miami, Florida shows off her yard of GREY BOTTLES, the first order of ABBYABBY fabric sold and shipped from our online shop! Thanks Nina! We can't wait to see what you do with it!

Efficiency in Motion

2009-06-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

With the help of our custom made, state of the art fabric cutting table designed by in-house Mechanical Engineer/Product Designer, Jerry Manock, our first orders were cut with ease and precision.

www.abbyabby.com is OPEN for business, get it while its hot!

2009-06-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

Opening Day was a fantastic success!! Thanks to all the die hard fans who lined up with lawn chairs and cocoa last night to be the first to visit the online shop. Because everyone was so patient and well behaved, we were able to send home all the security guards (all named Abby) we hired to prevent stampede.

Grand Opening! June 15th!

2009-06-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Free Tote bags with the first 100 orders.

2009-06-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.7dvt.com/2009vermont-artist-turns-material-girl

2009-06-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

Vermont Artist Turns "Material" Girl

It’s not uncommon for painters, sculptors and designers of all kinds to supplement their incomes by producing housewares, clothing lines or sundry tchotchkes for a mass market. Michael Graves did it designing toasters for Black & Decker. Isaac Mizrahi did it creating fashions for Target. Keith Haring did it selling all kinds of merchandise bearing his iconic images. So Abby Manock, a visual artist who splits her time between New York City and Vermont, is in good company.

Recently, Manock, 32, launched a line of organic cotton fabric under the name abbyabby. Though her simple, graphic line drawings on a solid-color background may suggest “outsider” art, Manock holds an MFA from Columbia University.

Based in New York for her work as a multimedia installation artist, the Vermonter feels strongly about setting up shop in her home state. “I really want this to be a Vermont company,” Manock says. “I don’t want it to seem like I’m some poseur.”

Still, her return home to establish her business was a bit of a happy accident. Manock had sublet her New York apartment for the summer to create a sculptural piece for the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee, which would require her to travel for a good part of the season.

But the Bonnaroo gig fell through and her apartment was already rented, so Manock came home to Burlington to craft her fabric. It worked out for the best, because she’s been able to tap the skills of local folks to help her create abbyabby. These included her father, architect Jerry Manock, who designed her fabric-cutting table.

The fabric is sustainably sourced and is printed in Washington state. It can be used for whatever people want, Manock says — bags, curtains, pillowcases. If the fabric enterprise is successful, Manock sees some abbyabby housewares in the future.

Ask Manock about her motivation for creating these first five prints — featuring acorns, trucks, bottles or cupcakes — and you’re likely to get a circuitous answer. But she admits there’s a bit of vanity involved. “I always sort of thought I would like to have fabric with my drawings on them,” she says.

Manock came up with the first designs after she tried to draw a truck from memory and couldn’t get the proportions right. She spent weeks drawing trucks, over and over, until she could reproduce one on paper without having to look at a truck in real life. As she filled notebooks with her drawings, she was struck by the aesthetics of the repetition.

“I thought, Oh, that would be a cool fabric,” she says.

The designs, which can be seen on Manock’s website, have struck a chord with friends and fans of her work. The bold, minimalist patterns are unlike anything else you’re likely to find on fabric. “They just go well with stuff,” Manock says. “They just sort of fit in and enhance what’s already there.”

Bags and pillows will be available mid summer 2009!

2009-06-14T12:37:00.000-07:00