Hi everyone,
Happy June and Happy Pride! The trees are finally green again, it feels like it almost happened overnight?! Everything looks so different, we’re getting our second wind from all the new life all around us. We’ve been outside as much as possible, we hope you all have been too!
LPP NEWS
Another busy month here at Lucky Pocket! Things are ramping up as we’re entering our book show season. We’ll see you THIS weekend at Toronto Comic Arts Festival on June 7-8 and Chicago Alternative Comix Expo on June 28 - 29!
At TCAF, we’ll be at table 79A at the Basketball courts! It’s a perfect match for our debut of our newest book, Basket, which is finally available to buy! Come stop buy and grab a copy!
We also finished our Kickstarter campaign for Knapsack Magazine Volume 2: Butter this month! We successfully raised 150% of our funding goal because of all of YOU and we are so thankful for your support! Thank you everyone! We’re so excited to bring the second volume to our readers, this one’s going to be special. We also received test prints in the mail, if you’re at TCAF we’ll have them behind the table for people to look through!
We’ve been working on running our Knapsack campaign and fulfilling pledges from our Basket campaign in tandem, and we’ve shipped most packages out (save for a few that need some extras we’re waiting on)! We’re so pleased to see everyone receiving their copies, we think Marie and Paco’s work is really phenomenal and we’re glad you’re all enjoying the book as much as we have.
We’re swimming along; finishing the book file for Knapsack 2 and prepping for shows! We’re looking forward for some breathing room in July… The back to back campaigns and upcoming shows have been a lot for the two of us, so thank you for sticking around!!
This month started off with Kyudo practice outside, in the glorious sun, finally… The day was perfect and mild, and we practiced in complete silence so all we could focus on was our actions and the sound of the bamboo in the yard bending and swaying in the breeze. A couple of fellow students dug up some young bamboo shoots and at the end of practice everyone got a few to take home and cook! Really, a perfect day.
As you know, we received the Basket books this month! We also got a second run of Knapsack Vol 1 shipped to us (we were on the last 100 books of the first run already!!!) Somehow, we always have pretty dubious luck with shipments, and the 4 pallets of books arrived in a truck whose life gate broke down right in front of Sara’s garage. Sara and the kindest delivery man ever (Thank you Leo!!) had to break apart the pallets one-by-one and cart them into Sara’s garage, lol. We then set to fulfilling together! We set up a folding table outside (so we could get some sun) and packed 137 boxes in one sitting. The delivery man said it was the most packages he’d picked up so far!
Our biggest event of the month was SARA’S BIRTHDAY on May 27th! Sara hosted an amazing picnic with DELICIOUS food Sara made!
It was an “activity potluck:” the theme was bring your own activity or something to share. Everyone showed up!! There was a million things to do and the day passed by too quickly. Sara was surprised with a cake from CakesbyClio, it was a custom hojicha blackberry-thyme cake with kinako frosting and edible flowers, SOOO YUMMY!
It was also a rare beautiful day after a month full of rain, the sun came out just for Sara’s day. There was crafts, cornhole, badminton, and at the end of the day there was a Sara-themed Trivia which everyone was fighting HARD to win!! Did you know Kirby’s original name was supposed to be Tinklepopo?!
Steph’s Corner 🏺
Hi everyone, It’s Steph! I went to another woodfire in Baltimore this month and assisted with stoking the fire, although I didn’t have any pieces in this time. Here’s a bowl from the last firing, though! My partner Olioli hand built this bowl and I painted on it. It was so fun to see my pieces after all the work we put into firing it!
Lately, I’ve been trading hours of studio tech work at a local studio so all I’ve been doing is making pots. It’s been a really fun and focused month for me; I’m trying to make as much as I can before a big move in July! Lately, I’ve realized I don’t consider myself an artist as much as I do someone who utilizes “expression” in different ways. Learning functional crafts contributes so significantly to my happiness. I know I’ll come back to drawing one day, it’s my home! But for now…
Iʻve been feeling a lot of gratitude and appreciation for my life recently amidst the fear of this cruel and hateful world. Iʻm holding onto love and my loved ones and joy… Thanks for being here!
Sara’s Corner 🐌
Hi! This month I started my 28th winding spin around the sun Looking forward to a year filled with love, creative joy, and reverence!
Doing LPP work & freelance gigs has kept me pretty busy, but I also have a work-exchange apprenticeship in the city with a woman who sells heritage Chinese teas. I do a lot of tastings, shipping, and design, but this month we organized and ran a pop-up event on International Tea Day (May 21st)!
At the event, I ran a table with some tea tastings & education with teas from my own personal stash- I lived on a tea farm in Japan, so I have a lot of Japanese teas direct from farmers and friends to share. Something I love about tea is that it leads itself to connection and slowness. Speaking with people from all different walks of life with tea as the common ground has been a true joy of my 20’s. Steph also volunteered to help too!! Tea is like an art that uses different senses and lives in the ethereal realm rather than visual, so it’s another means of creative expression for me. I love it, and I’m so glad the event came together well :-)
Looking forward from this month, I feel myself pretty burned out and in need of some creative recuperation. I’m hoping to do a lot more farming this summer, and working in a field always gives me more creative juice, so here’s to hoping I can make something new soon :-D
That’s all for this month! Another long one… We didn’t even realize how many things we did (again!). We’re gonna keep working hard on our projects, and we’re dreaming of playing video games soon… See you soon at TCAF and CAKE ^_^ Love ya!
Love,
Sara, Steph, and Pocket
Eating / Drinking: Sara: Leafy greens nonstop. I’m craving cold food. Also perfected my almond butter recipe & made some seed crackers (to surprisingly great success!!) Excited for CSA season to start. Steph: Fresh mugwort tea from the garden, cold brewed shiso buckwheat tea. Salmon flakes on rice thanks to a life hack idea from Sara! I’ve been eating roasted cauliflower by the pound recently and religiously going to the farmerʻs market. Watching / Reading / Playing / Listening to: Sara: Finished Wuthering Heights! Another classic book checked off the list.. My nonfiction book has been Everyday Utopia by Kristen Godhsee about communal living historically & contemporarily (highly recommend). Using my gamecube to play Chibi Robo for the first time since I was 13 (thanks for the amazing birthday gift to all my friends….) Next classic I’m jumping into is Jane Eyre, lets go!!!!!! Steph: Sara roped me into reading Wuthering Heights, too! I finally understand what Kate Bush was singing! Our beloved friend Georgia got me into consuming media about Mount Everest (if you’re reading this Georgia we love you, thank you)…
