Just a few of Ben Kehoe's prints left! Soon the will be gone and you will be sad. Or perhaps very happy because you purchased one. Either way, you will want to stop by Ben's portfolio site for assorted wonders.

Be sure to take a peak at "Constant Star", Ben's contribution to Unicorn Mountain - Volume 2. It looks terrific.

We're busy here at TS HQ preparing for tonight's unveiling so I will fill the news void by telling the RIers about our buddies at Providence's Steel Yard and their upcoming Works in Progress fundraiser, which takes place from May 15-18.

"This year's adventure will offer an exciting and unusual menu of opportunities with something for all ages, varied interests and any ability to pay. From the no-fee Iron Chef: Junkyard Edition (torch wielding metal workers take on the secret ingredient) to Spectator Sport Sunday (competitive welding and wheel-throwing), the creative spirit of the Steel Yard community will be in full gear."

Peep the full schedule and get your tickets right here. If you are even wondering whether or not I am going to buy tickets for "Smokin' Steel Yard" then you clearly do not know me.

I'm working on a new equation that states something to the effect of: If the sunlight coming through my window is brighter than the light emitted by my computer monitor, I should be outside.

Here's another one for you: Are you on the Tiny Showcase weekly email list? IF YES > We will see you tomorrow afternoon for a sneak peak at a brand new artist. IF NO > You are missing out!

Chris Ware for This American Life Season 2, which debuted last night. I stole that link from Kempa.

How to airbrush skulls onto helmets. Related: Learn to airbrush with Ed Hubbs.

You thought you could defeat me week? Well you were DEAD wrong! It is Friday afternoon and, although slightly lethargic, I am still putting up a fight. I'm about to box up my computer programming hands to keep them safe over the weekend but before I do, I thought I would type out a few items for you:

Sold out but pretty neat: An updated version of Massimo Vignelli's 1972 New York subway map, signed by Mr. Vignelli himself. Edition of 500.

The Pawtucket Foundation Prize Exhibition show opens up this weekend at 245 Main Street. The winners will be announced at the opening on May 3 sometime between 6pm and 8pm. The artist lineup is huge, featuring some of Rhode Island's greats, including Tiny contributor CW Roelle.

Friday afternoon video: Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd talk about creating mini comics and other fun stuff on KCET.

So that's that. Will you be joining us again next week? Tuesday marks the debut of a brand new print by a brand new artist and it's a beauty.

I leave you with two black and white performances of what is currently my favorite song, "Stagger Lee."

Hey! Did we mention that the corner splines in this week's framed prints are made from Vermont-milled Cherry? No? Well they are. And they are super duper beautiful.

We've been getting lots of fan mail about this print. The emails, combined with the sun, free coconut superbrownies and my restored health, are making this a good week at Tiny HQ.

Deer Tick, Two Cow Garage, and Six Star General will be playing tonight at Jake's in Providence. That's one heck of a lineup, right?

Circus!, the work of Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock, opens tonight at 111 Minna in San Francisco. My blogofeed tells me that Jay Howell is DJing the party.

Sacred Spring, new works by Betsy Walton, opens tonight at Rare Device in San Francisco.

Stream the new Les Savy Fav. Those dudes used to live in Providence. Yup.

I live about a block from the oldest children's mental health facility in the United States. Sometimes I cut through their parking lots and haunted brick structures while I'm riding my bike. They've got this weird old decomposing pool hidden away behind an ancient smoke stack and that's what I think of of every time I look at Leah Giberson's print. I was realizing last night that every single person who purchased this print must have a strong pool or waterslide memory. I bet there are some neat stories. I had a friend growing up who went to a Summer camp with water slides. A fellow camper blatantly disobeyed the camp's strict no head-first watersliding rule and had to be medivaced to the local trauma center. Maybe his waterslide memory is not as positive as yours and mine.

You can see much, much more of Leah's work on her portfolio site. The bad news is that one lucky Tiny Showcase shopper was astute enough to notice that the original "Poolside" was up for sale on Leah's Etsy shop and bought up it right away. The good news is that Leah has a few other beautiful paintings up for sale.

I've got the shivers. Partially due to the debilitating fever I've had for the past few days but mostly due to excitement over tomorrow's Tiny Showcase debut. We're continuing the Spring trend of releasing projects that take us beyond the realm of the standard Tiny Showcase edition with a beauty of a print by a brand new artist. Mailing list members will get a sneak peak tomorrow afternoon.

Paper Forest on Tiny Showcase contributor Wilson Swain's upcoming pop-up book, The Castaway Pirates.

Giovanni Schiaparelli's maps of Mars.

The Clue Premier Edition.

Funny, I don't feel older.

I went to bed at eleven because I think staying up past midnight ruins the surprise. Like any holiday, I like to wake up into it, not sit around watching it sneak up on me, while non-holiday feelings linger in the air.

Then I woke up at three because - who goes to sleep that early? I was feeling generous; I played with my cats. They were PSYCHED. I heard them whispering "Is she FOR REAL?"

The next time I woke up was to a solid number birthday wishes that each individually made me cry because I am SENTIMENTAL (TO A FAULT) TO THE POINT WHERE last night my friend (and I am paraphrasing here) leaned over in a hilariously drunken stupor to my mostly sober face and said something like "FINCH, we all know you are sentimental, but don't let that dictate your birthday."

But how can I not? A text just came through and tears leapt to my eyes. The only thing I effortlessly succeed at is: feeling. Like how what I effortless fail at is: not letting things 'get' to me.

So in light of my sentimental and comedic nature, was this not THE GREATEST LINK that someone could have ever sent me for my birthday? You KNOW I laugh/cried for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

Honestly, I've watched it at least four times. It's worth it for seconds 2:06-2:08 alone.

Joke's on me, cuz now the song's stuck in my head and I've had to accept how much I like it. This is the second time within weeks that joking about 80's love ballads has forced me accept to how much they actually move me/retain their power over me. Is it nostalgia? Is it for real? I remain uncertain.

As if my birthday wasn't enough,

Grant Barnhart has his first solo show opening in Luxembourg on the 2nd of May at Leslie's Art Gallery.

Howell Golson's site is fresh as in fresh and as in fresh.

There's a Geoff McFetridge show at Mollusk Surf Shop in SF.

But right outside Providence THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, RI, everyone's favorite photographer Scott Lapham has a show opening from 5-7 this very eve. I will quote from the site, because I've lost my skills of summary.

The Slater Mill Historic site has an original collection of Lewis Hine photographs taken in northern Rhode Island in 1909 and 1912. You can imagine how I felt when Slater Mill contacted me (Scott Lapham) saying they had a grant to create a show of the original Lewis Hine photos with a modern update to be shot by myself and Photographic Memory assistants. The Opening is April 25th from 5-7pm at the Slater Mill gallery at 67 Roosevelt Ave in Pawtucket RI.

Ok.

In my last post I predicted introspection and verbosity on my birthday. And oh, I've got it, but as a birthday gesture I'm sparing you. Instead, also as predicted, I'm going to eat some semi-sweet morsels and just head outside.

It's a beautiful spring day, I've gone twenty-nine years under my skin, and no regrets.

Yes.

hello fiends

So Jon and I are both sort of phoning it in this week on posts. I gave Jon my infinity-sickness and then I came down with a bad case of the allergic-to-the-computers. It's a common disease that occurs once it gets warm enough to sleep with the windows cracked and light enough later to chill on the stoop with the homesters and the neighborhood rats catching the rays rather than in front of glowing screens catching digital tans and hurty fingers.

Luckily the Little Friends of Printmaking saved the day. We love these dudes, this cosmic duo - we've never hung on a stoop but when we do it will be EPIC. The prints are sold out, but totally ridiculous print-sized stickers of the digital image will be available in our shop in May. (They are limited and so the mailing list will have first dibs, as always.)

Today I got some really awesome news that Evan P. Schneider of Bus 66 fame will be publishing a section of my last TS weekly newsletter in the first ever issue of Boneshaker. Boneshaker is a pocket-sized literary bicycle almanac, presented in good conscience, that provides relevant, interesting, and useful considerations of bicycle commuting.

What I wrote wasn't even about bikes, just about living the good life, which is basically about bikes, and now it's getting called a poem and printed.

How rad is that?

Ok. That's it. I'm not feeling very write-y this afternoon and my typing finger hurts. But tomorrow is my birthday and I anticipate what might be the most epic and introspective TS post of all-time coming on. After all, I'm embarking on my last year of twenty-something. It deserves something. Something verbose and distracting, suited for a friday afternoon read in the office when it's so sunny and the sickly sweet scent of toner wafts from the printer in the warm over-circulated air.

Or I might eat semi-sweet morsels for breakfast and just go outside.

Who even knows about twenty-nine? Not me. Not yet anyways.

I've been super sick for the past few days. Sorry Tiny readers. I've let you down.

We'll make it up to you this evening with a brand new print package release. We're experimenting with weird art printing mediums this Spring and tonight is one of said projects. It is really fun to track down shops in New England who still produce weird specialty items that most companies have outsourced to far away lands years ago (say, gum-backed bookplates or thousands of square feet of Pantone-matched sun-resistant inks for example). It feels very olde-timey and pretty much as far from the internet as you can get. It makes me want to fill Tiny Showcase HQ with antiquated machines composed of trillions of gears. Our love of not being electrocuted while simultaneously having our fingers chopped off is the only thing stopping us.

Mailing list members will be receiving a preview of this evening's artist and artwork in just a bit. Everyone else will receive nothing. Not even a souvenir wooden nickel.

Keeping you insane until this evening: Slate on Subway's new five-dollar foot-long campaign. "We didn't want any blabbing," say Jerry Cronin and Jamie Mambro of MMB. "It was just, let's see how many times we can say 'five dollar foot-long.' Let's mention it as many times as possible without making someone hurt us. We wanted to make sure no one would miss the message."

Ohhhhhhohoho. Hi there friends of mine. I'm hopping around the Tiny Headquarters all crazy-like today. I'm crazed! I'm doing the Daniel Day Lewis bowling alley dance. Yowza!

Why, one might ask, would I be so excited on a Thursday afternoon? Is it the sun? The fact that tomorrow is Friday? My extremely comfortable choice of clothing for today? Well, yes, those all play a role in my good mood. But there is something far, far bigger friends. Sign on up for the mailing list and we'll let you in on the secret in the very near future (hint: tomorrow).

We noticed this a week or two ago but we were all "Is that Jordan Crane? Noooo. It couldn't be." But then we realized that it was amongst the most insane book packaging jobs ever whipped up and we were like "Oh yeah. Only Jordan Crane could pull that one off." Have you ever seen his Tiny Showcase 10 Beasts! contribution? Case und point. Design:Related takes a look at the beauty that makes us want to own, like, a trillion copies of Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends. I sent the link over to Dan Wood over at DWRI Letterpress and his response was "Man, that McSweeney's is sure keeping some high end printers busy..."

I'm kind of super into this shirt.

KUT's Retread Sessions.

Hey! Andy Kehoe's back! I'm back too! And it is sunny out! Exclamation points!

You can peruse much, much more of Andy's work on his portfolio site. I would highly recommend swinging by and seeing the sites.

I would also recommend heading outside and enjoying some warm, fresh air. I feel like this might be the first official nice day of the year at Tiny Showcase HQ. BBQs and bike rides, here I come.

"I feel a Tiny Showcase post coming on."

I was standing in the sun in the backyard with Deb about to water our newly seeded lawn when I lifted up the sprinkler and well, what was it named?

The Turbo-heart.

I pointed at it and we both cracked up. "That's your name!" she said. And we were still laughing and I was staring at the ground and thinking about what a strange name that was for a sprinkler when she said "I feel a Tiny Showcase post coming on."

Sometimes friends just know.

We had just concluded a business meeting over wheat-free, dairy-free, everything-free waffles and cantaloupe and coffee and grapefruit juice that made me think "Why can't every day begin with a business meeting?" And then think "I never thought I would ever think that."

It was the kind of business meeting that gives me chills because so many awesome ideas were around and about and I KNOW we say this quite a lot but man alive, my friends, we've got some sickk projekts in the works right now.

Have we ever failed to deliver? We fail at a bunch of stuff (comedic timing, punctuality, getting serious-ness, IKEA furniture assembly) but never at delivering.

So today someone sent me a link to a very funny clip of a very fashionable woman schooling me, the viewer, on how to "acquire" fashion. While thinking of a witty reply to the email, I happened to glance down and realize I was dressed entirely in gray.

Now, some of you may remember one of my New year's resolutions was to be more fashionable. And I do think that dressing completely in gray is a fashion statement of some kind, but it's a statement I don't feel ready to make.

It makes me feel sort-of non-existent, in a way I'm not ready to confront. I can't pull off 'dull' like someone with more attitude might. Instead I feel uneasy, like my clothes might overcome me and I might actually cease to be.

What.

Tonight we're coming at you with yet ANOTHER amazing Showcase for the ages. Why don't you sign up for our sneak-artists-peek mailing list why don't you?

This should cheer you up.

Or make you feel kinda bad.

Today we have a special guest post-er for this Friday afternoon into weekend, one Mr. Mike Taylor. Also known from such letterpress Showcases as this one, Mike kindly offered to share some thoughts on his favorite art happenings of the new year to date.

BUT FIRST REALLY IMPORTANT: The most important thing happening tonight is the Will Schaff and Neil Walsh opening at 5 Traverse in Providence, the Center of the Universe, Rhode Island. The opening runs from 5 until 8 and EVERYBODY will be there.

Ok.

[Begin transmission]

Mike Taylor's favorite art events of the young 2008, thus far:

We were on our way out of Providence at 5pm, but when it took twenty minutes to reach the freeway on-ramp at rush hour, we thought better of trying to force our way through the clogged arteries of Connecticut to see DANIEL HIGGS AND ASA OSBORNE: PUPILS at MOUNTAIN FOLD, 55 5th ave, 18th floor, NYC. However, Daniel did show me the drawings that were going into the show, so I can speak with authority. Asa' papercuts are rewardingly meticulous, Daniel's drawings are authoritative and transcendental.

Chris Johanson has a book out called "Please Listen I Have Something to Tell You About What is", which you prolly already know about. It's like saying spinach is a leafy green, to recommend this meaty tome, but what can I say? When I first saw Johanson's work, significantly after the curve but still a long time ago, I was all like, "Who is this kid biting my style?" Oops. Sorry, it's much kudosed and lauded-to-the-max Chris Johanson. BUT, item for discussion: does Chris owe Pettibon royalties? (p.s. my work doesn't look like that anymore)

AND THEN THIS: Sasha was all like "Why are you gonna bigup THE SKELETON NEWS on Tiny Showcase, it sucks."

And I was like, "Well, the good parts make up for it, and since Paper Rodeo is no more, who's making a newsprint art(fully done) zine?"

"Who cares? Aren't you more concerned with the content?"

"Yeah, but, it's a ZINE, and everyone else just blogs. (Or blods, if you're from California)."

"So it's just nostalgia. For print".

Two night ago: Wolf Eyes show. Started strong, in that hessian noise lollapalooza volume behemoth way, that Miller Genuine Draft way, but soon, well...I think Wolf Eyes gave me a stomachache. That thunder broom duct tape monstrosity they use, maybe, was making some sound that forced me from the room. I turned down a come-on at the bar to skate home and vomit (or other!!!) in peace, but just ended up staring at the ceiling for 5 hours, flipping a Morrissey tape over and over. Kinda miserable.

That's all I got!

[End transmission]

That's all we've got, yoz. Bring the weekend.

Dear Showcase,

It's feeling awfully quiet around TS HQ for a Wednesday afternoon. Jon B's got an Out of Office reply taped to his popcorn maker; the mail rests unlit in the fireplace, the interns lie dozing in the sunny spots on the floor; this can only mean one thing: we've got this whole place to ourselves.

Dim the lights. Let's get to know each other.

Let's get to know CW Roelle.

Last night we blew the rooftops up off this piece and released an edition of 100 handmade wire sculptures by CW Roelle. This morning I heard from a lot of people who were disappointed to have missed out on last night's Showcase. This afternoon I have this to say to you: CW Roelle has not seen the last of Tiny Showcase.

But if you're biting at the chomp, why not check out his available works on his Flickr page? There's some serious seriousness on that site that makes my jaw-drop and my eyes go all swirly like a barbershop sign.

In other news:

Seeing as Jon's out of town, I feel like I should tell some Jon secrets. But when I think about them, I think I've divulged them all before. We all know he called 9-1-1 on his parents; we all know he snacks on sauerkraut straight from the jar; we know he goes crazy for Creedence doesn't know when to say when when popcorn is at stake. And he won a math award in high school.

That's it. That's all I've got. What else can we do now that Jon B's out of town?

Let's just see where my mind takes us.

So I'm back in the USA and listening to the Silver Jews again. Sometimes the songs fit the environment, and the Silver Jews never fit Scotland for me. Not such a surprise, I guess. So I'm dusting off my MP3s and feeling the Jews again and my word, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do believe they are my favorite band. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if I could marry art, I would marry everything Dave Berman makes.

"Yes, I take thee, Dave Berman's poetry, songs, and scribbly drawings to be my lawfully wedded art."

It never goes away for me, the way what he makes makes me feel; he withstands the test of my times.

If I could be ANY animal you ask? Well that's a tough question. I think I might be a fox or a raccoon; raccoons wash their food but foxes get more respect; It's a tough call. Given my love of the ocean, you might think I would choose some aquatic animal, but when I stand in the sea it's as something who lives outside of it and I love it as much for what I don't understand about it, and how I feel like I'm someplace entirely new every time I'm inside it.

I love things that take me places I can't go myself: drawings, songs, books, films, people: if I meet someone I can understand, I tip my hat, am pleased to meet them and content to go our separate ways. It's the person who has something I can't understand who has poor luck trying to shake me.

It can be as simple as the sea monster tattoo on your leg, Sa Merritt, that every time I see it - after a decade - I still can't fathom how it ended up there. How your mind worked, like a code I'll never solve. It's the people who can pull the rug out from under me, say something I would never say, make moves I can't anticipate, who bring me the most joy and fascination.

My favorite phrase I learned in Scotland was "WHAT are you LIKE?" which is basically a way of saying "You're crazy!" But that's how I feel, most of the time, when I'm with the people I love:

What are you like?

If I can't understand what makes you tick or trace your thoughts or see through you then man oh man being with you is like standing inside an ocean.

You know?
Alright. That's enough of that.

Peacing out on a sunny springtime afternoon,
s. finch
cat-napper extraordinaire

Those of you who are on the TS mailing list understand how insane tonight's Showcase is gonna be.

To those who are not, I quote one email received from a dear Friend of the Showcase in response to our weekly heads-up newsletter:

"I love how nuts you two are! This is gonna be EPIC!"

Maybe it's just the single malt talking, but after sitting in the afternoon sun with three of my favorite friends debating whether or not anything in contemporary art can still be called unprecedented: I still sort of think tonight's Showcase is pretty unprecedented.

Call it the unflinching optimist in me. Call it an antidote. Call it an anecdote. Call it anything you like. Call it something new and awesome happening here at 7:30 EDT tonight.

Hey hermanooooo! This is Jon, as evidenced by my initials in the top right corner of this update. I'm heading out of town for a few days so I leave you in the able, cat-napping hands of S. Finch. This week's upcoming release is amongst my favorite Tiny Showcase projects of all time and we will be unveiling it to the mailing list on Tuesday afternoon. Those of you who are on the list, prepare to be all "Whaaaaaa?!?" Those of you who have not yet signed up might consider doing so.

Keeping you busy until tomorrow evening:

Ink Ape just released the "Copper Dog," a three-color hand-printed screen print on blue paper. The edition is limited to 25 prints available online.

This has been linked a trillion times already but the new video for Björk's "Wanderlust" is really terrific. I wanna see the 3D version.

"Indoor Gardening Tips from A Man Who's Very Scared of Plants." Did you know that Christopher Walken is a Rhode Islander? I bet you didn't. I stole that link from our favorite accountant, who is currently too busy to read our website, so we're safe.

Oh man. We're all sleepy-bo-beepy here at Tiny HQ. It might be naptime. Gotta re-energize to prepare for the weekend. I'm all whiney and cranky right now. Waaah! Where's my sunny Friday afternoon? I want some juice! Where's my string cheese??

Tonight at AS220: B Sharp Music's 5 Year Anniversary Party! The lineup features Denimvenom, Sweettheives, and The Butcherings. I'm excited. How about you? Can you believe that B Sharp has been open for 5 years? Have you ever heard the story about the time Boy George's band went in there to get their keyboards repaired?

Tonight at Grasshut in Portland: The work of Amy Ruppel and Trish Grantham. You can catch a preview of the show right here.

Sunday night at Stairwell Gallery: Artificial World "An exhibit comprised of 3 Providence and 5 visiting Japanese artists whose work touches on made-up, artificial, or simulated worlds. The work will range from installation, drawings, paintings, sculpture,
and performance." The artist lineup includes Aki Goto, Ben Fino-Radin, Joseph Buzzell, Masaru Aikawa, Tetsunori Tawaraya, Mat Brinkman, and Tomoko Kokubo.

Totally mesmerizing: Helvetica characters falling through some sort of liquid.

Opened last night at Rare Device in San Francisco: California Dreaming, curated by The Beholder. If the postcard's any indicator, the show is top notch. It features the work of Timothy Buckwalter, Mike Monteiro, Jennifer O'Keeffe, Scott Barry, Eric Scheib, Suzanne Husky, Lisa Congdon, Noaki Mitsuse, and Martha Rich.

I leave you on a super uplifting note: Chris Uphues' Heart Project.

Fellow New Englander, all-around great guy and phenomenally phenomenal artist and illustrator Dan James brings us this week's letterpress magic. We've been working on this one for ages and I couldn't be more proud of it.

Dan, aka ghostshrimp, has recently updated his portfolio site with a new layout and tremendous new work. I would highly recommend swinging by. It should be pointed out that while some artists make up crazy stories for their mission statement, the part about ghostshrimp residing on a secret mountain is totally true. He's currently off working on a show for Cartoon Network, which you should also read about. It sounds pretty amazing.

You can find the digital color and layout reference that we used in printing "sometimes you need things that aren't yours" in the Present section of the ghostshrimp site. Kudos to Dan at DWRI Letterpress for finding such a perfect (and locally made/environmentally friendly) paper match. I promise to start posting the side-by-side digital/letterpress print examples more in the future. They're really fun to look at.

I finished foil stamping all of the sets last weekend and Dan Wood finished typesetting and debossing all of the edition information into the prints on Monday. You're going to love them.

"I'm-a no look-a for trouble, because-a trouble, she's-a no good." - Jack Handey

Did you have a nice weekend? I did. Top-notch, some might say. We've got this week's Tiny Showcase release ready for unveiling so we're pretty much the most excited people in Rhode Island right now. I'm hoping you will swing by tomorrow evening to check it out. Until then:

The Legends of Rap trading card deck. The illustrations (all done by Tobias Krafczyk) are terrific.

Sure, it has already made the blog rounds today, but just in case you haven't seen it yet: "A Veteran MAD Man Remains in the Fold." An amazing little profile of Al Jaffee. Be sure to check out the fold-in slide show. Also, note the fact that the dude draws all of the fold-ins without ever folding them. Totally done by eye.

Providence's beloved Deer Tick on Daytrotter. The re-working of "Ashamed" is so good.

Last night I stayed up crazy late foil stamping the last few elements of next week's artwork. Here is a reeaaally small peak at a really small portion of the artwork packaging.

"But I wanna see more!!!" Well then sign on up for the Tiny Showcase mailing list! We'll be unveiling more of the artwork on Tuesday.

Original Ada Lovelace painting purchased on eBay. Mostly nerdy, mildly arty, fascinating.

Rhode Island's Rocco P. DeSimone, former prison escapee, art dealer, and convicted tax cheat, goes back to jail. I have nightmares this time of the year about accidentally checking off the wrong box on my tax filings and ending up in the Italian Rhode Island Art Dealers Who Lied on their Taxes jail club.

Fact: Everyone in Providence is on a brew-your-own-beer kick right now. It is totally true. Between myself and people I know, I think we've brewed something like 200 gallons of beer this Winter. I just bottled an American-style lager that has the potential to be somewhat tasty. We'll see how it turns out. Anyhow, two beer/art links that I will leave you with on this fine Friday afternoon.

1. Via the always-awesome Book By Its Cover, you need to check out Beer, a handmade, super limited-edition book by Joe McLaren.
2. The illustrations of Frank Soltesz, a Flickr set. Browse through for such gems as "How a Modern Brewery Operates."

My brewery is a little less complex.

I can't recommend highly enough taking a few moments to browse through Jaakko's recent works. The color, the detail, the tiny little illustations - they're just blowing me away. We've been seeing all sorts of beautiful work coming out of Nordic countries lately and it has started making me think that it might be time for Tiny Showcase to head overseas on a little field trip.

Our Finnish friends can catch Jaako's solo show, Historian ystävät, for a few more days at Napa, a Helsinki-based purveyor of fine artwork, books, and other items created solely for the purpose of making your life better. His show runs through Friday.

And so begins our Tiny broadcast week. Three quick ones for you today as we prepare for tomorrow's artwork debut. We've got a brand new artist lined up for you. Perhaps I could recommend signing up for our mailing list if you have not done so already?

1. "Create Your Own Font." Our buddy Cyrus pointed us to this fun Wired piece.
2. "Map Songs: Wire's Map Ref. 41° N 93° W" a really great bit on Making Maps: DIY Cartography about Wire lyrics. Worth checking out for the cover artwork alone.
3. Song of the Mon-day: Daytrotter's version of "Three Colors" by Sunset Rubdown.

As you embark on your seventh cold of the winter, you begin to wonder if it hasn't all just been one epic sickness, in seven acts.

I don't want to go out like Jim Henson. At least not until I do something at least an eighth as awesome as everything he did. Last night I collected enough wood for a campfire and considered it an achievement. I didn't design a Muppet, or name anything Gonzo, or Fozzy, or Snuffleupagus for that matter. For twenty-one nights I've slept in twenty-one places with an immune system that holds up like rice paper in a rain shower.

Which explains the seventh cold.

For those of you in the Worcester region this Saturday, HBML is holding another of their infamous screenprinting sessions during which you, the customer, bring something in and have it printed while you wait. This Saturday's image is on the surprisingly gentle theme of cherry blossoms, although Jacob promises some of the cherry blossoms will actually be little pictures of Doctor Doom, Donald Duck, Iggy Pop, and Mr Butch (RIP).

Also this Saturday, if you are living in SF and crying your eyes out because you can't get your pillowcase & duvet printed with Doctor Doom cherry blossoms, dry your eyes on Out-Of-Towners, the second opening exhibition at Fecal Face Dot.

Fairfax + Haight opened last night at the VASF gallery in SF and includes work by Jungil Hong and Megan Whitmarsh as well as a bunch of other 'tippity top notch' folks.

Did I ever show this to you guys? SO NICE. Time-interval photos from the collars of cats. Thank you, Craig, for the ever-uplifting link.

As the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone whirlwind tour of the UK draws to a close, and finds me back on a couch in London in the company of old friends with an impending rain-drenched barbeque on the schedule, I look back over the past few weeks on the road and can understand how Kanye let it all go to his head.

Being treated well on tour is like some unbelievable prank and you just keep waiting for the punchline. If you ask for a carrot cake, someone brings you a nice little carrot cake. If you say "I've never had hot cross buns before and I've been searching for them all day," some nice guy in Dublin goes out and buys you a pack. Then he fixes you a cup of tea to go with it and cracks a few Father Ted references in the process. You know I threw down some of my own, and you know he kept up without missing a beat.

Sometimes the punchline does arrive. It's normally something to the tune of "I'm seventeen and you'll be sleeping at my dad's house tonight. He's a little eccentric."

People are nice to you, as a career. Now just imagine it at Kanye's level; it's no wonder that guy's got so much to apologize for! The star treatment is mind-bending! TS is doing it all wrong! TS should be a band.

Because right now ain't no one bringing us carrot cake; no matter how radical we keep telling them we are.

FRIENDS OF SHOWCASE NEWS:

Ian Dingman has work in the New York Times, a drawing in a group show in Denver at The Lab at Belmar, and a book cover design (die-cut jacket with art on the hardcover as well) with Doubleday for the novel When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale which will be released July 22.

Cole Gerst/Option-G has plenty of new wares for hocking in his shop - including skateboards and engraved moleskein notebooks!

Mr. Andreas Samuelsson has redesigned his already impressive website.

And last but not least: Josh Keyes, Jennifer Davis, Jack Long, and Nigel Peake all have work in the Tiny Showcase Spring Collection which will be available until we release the Tiny Showcase Summer Collection. Have you heard about this? Well, it's a scam. Take a look up and take it all in.

Ohhhh hi there. Perhaps you've noticed by now that we've officially released our 2008 Spring Seasonal print collection? It, of course, features artwork by our buddies Jennifer Davis, Josh Keyes, Jack Long, and Nigel Peake, lovingly printed on a beautiful new line of super-renewable and archival bamboo printmaking paper? Are you glowing? I am.

You should peruse the artists' portfolio sites when you have a chance if you haven't already. If you are interested in seeing some of their work in person, Josh Keyes is currently participating in Contested Ground: The Landscape Redrawn, which can be seen at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture. Jack Long's work can currently be viewed in At The Movies, a group show at Giant Robot in San Francisco. You just missed Jennifer Davis' work at Cerasoli Gallery but you can see some photos here. Nigel Peake has two brand new super limited-edition zines available through Analogue Books.

Oh my good-a-ness. Things have been a bit coo coo around Tiny Showcase, what with the Spring 2008 print line about to unveil. New artwork, a brand new printmaking paper, and a very Spring-like feel to the whole thing. Every time I look at the collection, it puts me in a good mood. And I've been staring at it for weeks, so I'm in a really great mood.

You should have received your weekly email by now. If you haven't, you might want to make sure you don't have the 1-clip attachment on your spam filter. If you have not yet signed up for Shea'la's lovely emails, well then I guess we will just see you tonight for the collection's official launch.

Hot Chip covering "Sensual Seduction." I'm going to break my ban on hip hop covers and tell you that I am into this. I must be getting old.

Goings on this weekend? Saturday night marks the opening of Leif Goldberg and Erin Rosenthal's Sound Beings at Providence's Stairwell Gallery.

You can also catch Leif's work at Giant Robot LA this weekend. Giant Robot has a trifecta of awesome opening on Saturday. Year of the Rat opens at their store in LA. Tides of March is opening at their shop in New York. At the Movies will be kicking off at their location in San Francisco. All three group shows feature tons and tons of Tiny Showcase contributors.

Nashville's Smallest Art Gallery, opening this weekend with works by Ferris Plock, Matthew Curry, and Rachel Briggs. I read about this on Yewknee and haven't been able to stop laughing/thinking about how awesome of an idea it is (like the The Wrong Gallery without the annoying bits). Completely powered by solar lighting, making it "the only 100% self-sufficient art gallery in Nashville (and again, perhaps the world)."

Photos of Ray Fenwick's upcoming Hall of Best Knowledge, due out in a few weeks from Fantagraphics.

I leave you this fine Friday afternoon with bicycle lust: Our buddy Micah's brand new single speed, made in Providence by the inimitable Circle A Cycles.

Tonight marks the opening of Lisa Solomon and Marin Camille's Intersections at the Cesar Chavez Student Center at San Francisco State University."Intersections presents visually potent, fabric-based works by two East Bay artists. Each artist's work fuses disparate principles to create images that defy viewer expectations. At the intersection of these hybrid works are challenges to social ideologies from which cognitive and expressive effects emerge."

Also in San Francisco: Evan B. Harris' Garden at Eichstatt opens this evening at Rare Device.

"Garden at Eichstatt is Harris' interpretation of the illustrated plates of Basilius Besler, a 17th century horticulturist and illustrator. Harris uses Besler's illustrations as inspiration for the backdrop for his characters play out his narratives. Harris provides a peek under leaves, bramble and stones, leading us to a new Besler's Garden at Eichstatt."

Gary Panter, Jonathan Lethem, Marvel Comics. Link stolen from Fantagraphics. Gary Panter's Daydream Trap, his first solo museum exhibition, is currently on exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.

A few copies of Chris Ware's Nebraska catalog are available for purchase from Buenaventura Press. The catalog, from Chris Ware's exhibition at The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, features never-before-seen strips, sketchbook pages, photos, as well as an introduction by the artist.

Welcome new Tiny Showcase readers from far away exotic lands! You've picked a great week to join us - it doesn't get much more beautiful than a diptych by Aurora Robson and Lisa Solomon.

The bad news is that all of the Tiny prints are gone. The good news is that you can view (and purchase!) much much more of their work on their portfolio sites, LisaSolomon.com and AuroraRobson.com. You should swing by and peruse. Lookin's free, right?

We're back and it is Tu-tu-tuesday! If you have not yet received your Tiny weekly email then there is most likely something terribly wrong with your spam filter. We will be unveiling a new set of fine art prints this evening. Perhaps we will see you there?

Some non-light reading to hold you over until this evening's artwork debut: The 2008 Whitney Biennial, which opened last weekend.

And, conversely, some light reading to hold you over: "How Things Even Out" by Jack Handey.

Thank the alcalde de Rancho Grande for that last link.

"But maybe I don't want to dance, 'cause I've not had as much as you."

We've got dueling events going on in the greater Providence area this evening. This presents a problem as both events feature great friends of Tiny Showcase. I'm going to tell you how I'm planning out my evening, you can plan your own evening however you like.

First up, Experiencing the War in Iraq opened yesterday at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket. The opening party takes place tonight at 6pm with music by Black Pus, Baba Yaba, and Riders Against the Storm. The artist lineup is BIG and amongst the contributors is our letterpress artist laureate, Dan Wood, who will be showing his work in Tiny Print Machine format. Bring your laundry quarters and experience the magic of The New Newspeak Dictionary, letterpress stickers and letterpress prints on flocked velvet.

Show poster by Ink Ape

Next up: B Sharp Music Presents the musical stylings of Quaky Gum, Death Vessel, Callers and Micah Blue Smaldone. The show is taking place at AS220 right around 9pm but I'll probably get there a little early so I can eat 3 burritos and a few platters of chips.

On a less RI-centric note: Vintage matchbook covers courtesy of Orange You Lucky. Be sure to click through and see the rest of the collection on Flickr. These blew me away.

OK. I'm tired of typing now so that's that dudezos. There are lotsa lotsa great shows opening up 'round the world next weekend so stay tuned. We'll see you on Tuesday for some new artwork?

May your weekend be sunny and free of basement floodings. I leave you with this gem (wait until 1:45 - you're gonna freak out):

Thursday night at 111 Minna in San Francisco: Punks Git Cut, the work of Jay Howell. The show runs through March 29 and features new paintings, photos and animations.

Need more motivation to hop on the plane to the West Coast to go see the show?

Totally amazing, right? I stole that link from Jay's blog.

A few weeks back I had these masonry dudes helping me out with a problem at my place (ghouls bearing a striking resemblance to Klaus Kinski kept climbing out of the cracks in my basement floor). I was in the other room and one of the contractors picked up an old Jay Howell zine off of my bookshelf. In a really thick Rhode Island accent asked "Ey boss, check out this tiny book - Punks Git Cut! Whattha hell is this?" The boss didn't have any answers so he asked me and I told him that it was "funny." They read a few pages and agreed. Totally true story.

Scott Kennedy's artwork is, of course, sold out. How could a print so terrific not sell out?? I love the detail in the cats. They've been making me laugh for weeks now.

You can view more of Scott Kennedy's work on his weblog or on his Flickr page.

I think Shea'la has a crazy story about hanging out with Scott in some foreign land (Berlin?) at some sort of crazy bar (devoted to ping pong?) but I've only heard rumors of such antics. I would ask her to tell you the story herself but she's probably cruising around in a tour van, lost somewhere in the UK right now. You can catch Shea'la, on tour with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Friday night at Roisin Dubh in Galway.

We're calling today Really Super Tuesday. Not only does Rhode Island get to play a minor* role in a primary, Tiny Showcase has also prepared a brand new piece of artwork by a brand new artist for this evening. We hope you'll affix your "I Voted!" sticker and take a break from your 'round-the-clock election coverage to stop by our site a little later this evening.

How Daniel Handler ended up on the cover of Sasa Stanisic's How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. "I'd be kind of annoyed if my new novel had my friend Rick Moody on the cover. Not that Rick Moody is not a good-looking man."

75 or Less Records presents Sharks Come Cruisin's Four Years Before the Mast EP, combining "traditional songs of sailing, whaling, drinking and sinking with drums, bass, fiddle, banjo, accordion, guitar and lots of hollering."

Also of musical note, my copy of the PWRFL Power EP was just delivered.

* There are more Dunkin Donuts within walking distance of my local polling place than there are Rhode Island Democratic Party delegates. Mildly-related, slightly-educational, borderline-fun: Slate's Delegate Calculator**.

** Yes, you read that correctly. Puerto Rico gets more delegates than Rhode Island.

I sense someone somewhere is having a bad case of the Mondays.

I bet it's Jon. I bet he's hitting the snooze button right now and thinking "Whhhy why WHY WON'T THAT CAT SHUT UP." Poor Moosie. He just wants his breakfast.

A bad case of the Mondays: put it in perspective. It's better than having a bad case of the lifes. Have you ever thought of that? Now let's all be grateful and scour the office for free treats. Or scour London, if you happen to be there.

I've been in London a couple days now and I'm happy to announce my French has improved. Go figure. Besides speaking French, I've been killing time reading second-hand crime paperbacks and drinking tea. But the overall picture is far more weighty than that.

I promise.

So let's shake off those Mondays! Let's turn our attention to this week's Showcase All-Stars:

* Alika Cooper has new work available through Triple Base Gallery in San Francisco.

* Jon Burgerman has an array of new niceness up for sale in his shop.

* Andy Kehoe has a show at the Green Lantern Gallery in Chicago with his brother Ben Kehoe. (Oh and I heard a rumor that involved Tiny Showcase, the aforementioned Kehoes and the near future.)

* And Ray Fenwick's book The Hall of Best Knowledge is available for pre-order say what?? I just pretend ordered like a zillion copies. So now they are pretend sold out. Have fun waiting for the second edition, suckerzz.

So this is a really nice song that reminds me of staying inside on summer afternoons listening to fuzzy low-fi pop songs on my parent's record player when I was fifteen only now I'm twenty-eight and it's a Monday in London in late winter and this is a digital file (not a record) by a band from China (not Seattle).

And as always and forever we have a new print launching tomorrow night. If you are not yet on our mailing list but want the first in breaking TS artist news, please sign up for it by entering your email address into the little rectangle near the Northeast corner of the Southern section of this page and clicking the box that exclaims: Sign me up, yozz!

You'd best be enjoying this leap year. We don't get another Friday, February 29 until 2036. By then, I'll be all retired and a holographic hula-robot will be serving me Salty Dogs while I sit in front of my hover swimming pool. Man, the next Friday leap year rules. I can't wait.

Why on Earth would one want to walk into downtown Providence on a night as cold as tonight? A fair question and the answer is really quite simple, friends. Adrian Tomine at 7pm this evening at RISD. He'll be giving a talk and signing copies of his most recent book, Shortcomings.

"Toonces Without a Cause"

From this past weekend's NY Times Magazine: Back in the Swing, Robert Weaver's 1962 spring training sketchbook. I love these. The finished paintings appeared in the March 5, 1962 issue of Sports Illustrated. If you poke around on the web, you can find a few of them. If you poke around in the periodicals archive of your local library, you could probably find all of them.

To quote my good friend Otis on this Sunny-but-feels-like-0° Thursday, "Open the door. Please let me in. I've got nowhere to go. Open the door - or I'll kick it in. Because this runnin' around, sure 'nough, is killin' me." Did you know that Otis Redding recorded "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay" like three days before he died?

"When Otis recorded this, he and Cropper didn't have a last verse written, so he whistled it. He planned to return to Memphis and fill in the verse after performing in Madison, Wisconsin, but he died before he had the chance..." - Songfacts by way of the Stax Museum

A sort-of-live map of every train in Switzerland. Why is this so fascinating?! I really couldn't offer up an explanation other than the fact that the staff of Tiny Showcase is completely enamored with A) Charts B) The Swiss. Link borrowed from The Morning News.

Buddy Miles passed away this week. This got me searching for old videos, which turned up Jimi and Buddy playing Newport Pop '69. A good deal of the footage is Rhode Islanders who look a lot like my parents and their friends being roughed up by Dragnet-looking Newport police officers and off-duty yachting instructors, but the good parts are really good. Even more enjoyable, possibly to the point of qualifying as "amazing," is this Band of Gypsys documentary.

Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch cooked up a fantastic illustration for Courtney Nash's morbidly fascinating "Final Tracks" in this week's Stranger. Farther South, Evan B. Harris on the cover of this week's Mercury.

Pardon the insanity here at Tiny Showcase. We had tater tots for lunch and the carbo-loading is making us crazy. Are there even carbs in tater tots? I'm not sure. But I've eaten about 2lbs of them today.

Last night we debuted the work of Italy's 1911 aka The Good Machinery. I'm guessing that you love the piece as much as we here at TS HQ do because it is just about sold out.

Want more? Well, you can catch plenty more work in 1911's online portfolio. You can buy more of 1911's work right here.

I could be embarrassingly wrong here but I believe 1911 is the Italy-based artist we've ever featured on Tiny Showcase. To celebrate, I'm forcing everyone at Tiny HQ to get back to their Italian roots by listening to LearnItalianPod podcasts (one of the greatest things ever to come out of the Internet) for the next eight hours straight. Here's a good one: How to dream about owning a Ferrari. Also of note: Italian pickup lines.

This just in:

Something radical.

Tiny Showcase is nearing its three year anniversary for publishing prints. That's a lot of prints. I can't do the math, but take my guess for it.

Regardless of all these prints, it still came as a surprise to receive the kindest email from some very loyal customers alerting us to the fact they've officially collected 100 TS prints over the years.

You probably can't understand how hard that hit us (in the awesome way) but man, it was so nice to hear and totally mind-blowing and awesome and everything.

SO if you are feeling competitive, why don't you sign up for our email list? As always we will be releasing a new print tonight at 7:30pm est.

Haters start your engines.

Snow day! Tiny Showcase is taking the day off due to what we in Rhode Island call "inclement weather." Mainers would refer to it as "Rhode Islanders being babies. You wanna see real snow?!?" I'm playing video games and listening to the sweet sound of spinning tires outside. It is quite lovely, actually. We shall return on Tuesday with a brand new print for you. Until then, stay warm.

Check out these super duper nice new framed Tiny Showcase images, courtesy of Melinda (the five newest additions). I like how the photos make Jen Corace's large print seem really small and her tiny, tiny print seem really big. Did you know that I am an expert on optical illusions? It is true. I won an award for my optical illusion science fair project in 5th grade. OK, technically my parents did, I just whined about how much I hated science fairs, but still, I got a ribbon.

I leave you with this piece: YouWorkForThem profiles Aesthetic Apparatus.

Keith Shore's bearded dudes really get around. This week they've stormed the cover of Portland's greatest rag The Mercury. Prints of the scruffy little guys are still available for sale here in Shorester's shop.

It's been like over five years since I lived in Portland but sometimes I still read the Mercury's I SAW YOU ads when I need to brighten my day. They're always like "I saw you.. at the local vegan eatery. You were the girl with the vintage skirt and pink headband. I was the boy wearing glasses who stumbled over your chair. We both laughed and you said "Have a nice trip?" and I said "See you next fall!" It was love at first sight. But then you got on your rainbow bike and cycled away - and out of my heart. Let me make you dinner sometime?"

ACTUAL ADS FROM TODAY:

you wrote my number on your hand after I forced you into a polaroid picture. I recognized you from the roller race in your pink undies... beer?

you came up to my table and nonchalantly mentioned that i "put every other girl in there to shame" in reply i think pulled my hood over my face and slammed my head down onto the beer puddled table to hide...

i helped you push your van to a gas station when it ran out of gas. mlk and fremont. can we hold hands?

You aren't ugly, you are BEAUTIFUL. You are honestly one of the most amazing people I've ever met. Kissing you that night was the best decision I've ever made. I can't wait to see you again.

So what have we learned? Romance is alive and well in Portland, Oregon - where the kids are a little tooo hip.

What are we about to learn? I once placed an I SAW YOU ad.

[Dum dum duummmm]

And I'm here to tell the tale.

I wish I could tell you it was a love connection but it was actually a public apology. My friend and I were driving down the street listening to music really loud singing along like you sing when you think you're alone, or when you're at karaoke, or in Lindsay's basement doing karaoke but thinking you're alone but then it turns out Jason had the video camera and you were belting out "Bette Davis Eyes".

So we were stopped at this light outside Fred Meyer's on Hawthorne when out of nowhere comes this tall drink of water with headphones on and two records under his arm (clearly just coming from Jackpot). Man. He was awesome. He was so into the music he was listening to that he was singing along and sort of dancing - like ever so slightly.

So what did we do? We cheered! What did he think? That we were making fun of him.

I. felt. so. bad.

It bothered me for days until I decided to place the I SAW YOU ad in the Mercury. It was something simple like, "Headphones boy dancing on Hawthorne on Saturday, we weren't laughing AT you, but WITH you."

Buuut I never checked the messages or set up one of those voicemail things, so I don't know if he ever read it. So if you were listening to headphones on Hawthorne Street in Portland about six years ago and a girl singing the Velvet Underground pulled up in a blue Honda Civic and started cheering:

we were laughing WITH you.

I know, I know. It is difficult to believe but Amy Ruppel is, in fact, that good. I should know - I obsess over her website on a weekly basis.

You can catch much, much more of Amy's work on said wonderful website, AmyRuppel.com. Her news section points out that she currently has work on display at Nahcotta Gallery and Rare Device SF. The rest of her online portfolio points out that she is amazing.

To answer the question you were just about to frantically email me, no - we ain't got nones more Amy Ruppel prints for yous. We will, however, continue selling Amy's enamel pin collection until we grow tired of pushing tiny (incredibly sharp) pinbacks through tiny pieces of cotton. Until then, we hope you love 'em!

Of a non-Amy Ruppel note: Full lunar eclipse tonight.

Prepare yourself. Tiny Showcase has some of the sweeeeeet stuff for you tonight. You're gonna go bonanzas when you see what we've got in store for you!

Our pals at RISCA pointed us to: Where Is It Slowly Going?, the work of Providence's Jo Dery along with David Herman Dune, Matthew Feyld, and Julien Langendorff. The show opens this Friday at Cinders in Brooklyn and we totally wish we could be there. Hell, maybe we will be there. How bad could a Friday afternoon Brooklyn commute be?

I'm a much bigger fan of the Friday afternoon walking commute and The Drawn and Quarterly blog is telling us that Adrian Tomine is speaking next Friday at RISD. Mr. Tomine, whose work can currently be spotted on the cover of the New Yorker, has a few other tour dates listed as well. He's out and about supporting his new book, Shortcomings. Those of you who don't get local Adrian Tomine sightings will have to settle for his chit chat with Terry Gross.

* Technically, it was our friend Cyrus, not Drawn and Quarterly, who pointed out that Adrian Tomine is speaking at RISD. But he hasn't updated his blog in two weeks so he's not getting a link.

My favorite photo of Jesse LeDoux's installation at the University of Maryland. More photos from the show can be seen here. Still not enough? How about a photo of me wandering around the installation aimlessly?

Over the weekend I misheard some Gang Starr lyrics as 'without summer, I wouldn't be here'. Similar to the months I spent misunderstanding the Nelly lyrics 'I like the way the light hit the ice and glare/and I can see you from way over there' to literally mean our hip-hop hero was hanging out on a snowy winter night admiring how the ice was reflecting around the object of his love, rather than her bling, I sometimes distort hip-hop lyrics to apply to my own life. I guess it's really all frame of reference, right? And without summer, guys for real: I wouldn't be here.

I honestly and earnestly hope that some day I have the opportunity to give an acceptance speech. You could call it a "goal". Not only would it give me an indisputable reason to have a fine brown suit tailored to my exact feminine specifications but it would give me the perfect opportunity for shout-outs to all the inanimate objects that get me through the day.

I'd be all like, "Oh man. I can't believe I just won this award. This is unreal. I'd like to start off by thanking pine cones. Yeah, I'm looking at you, acorns. The sneakers of the past, present and future.. and how could I ever forget my old pal bicycle? Not to mention all the portable listening devices I've gone though over the years.. You guys got me to where I am today. Also, I'd like to thank summer. Without summer, I wouldn't be here."

I want the "you're talking too long" music to cue up just as I've shouted "cake!" to conclude the list of foods I'll be thanking.

I want to be escorted off stage by Michael Cera and Dimitri Martin (the presenters) in my fine suit and my even finer sneakers, still shouting "my new cameras! my old cameras! the way stoplights can be two different shades of green!"

So.. you have your goals and I have mine.

Live and let live.

For the ping pong enthusiasts in the audience:

Our pal Andreas sent me a link to a preview for the film Ping Pong Kingen. Listen, I don't know what they're saying, and I can only sort of deduce what the film is about, but I'm positive it's the most beautiful film I've never seen. Potentially, it's my favorite film ever made.

Friend of Showcase Gregory Euclide has work in multiple shows at the moment. If you live in Colorado you can see his work at Limited Addiction Gallery or at Bucheon Gallery in San Fransisco.

New werkz in our Flickr Club.

And as always, Tiny Showcase has a new print coming at you tomorrow night. But here's the secret guys: it's more than a print. It's new and it's something Tiny Showcase has never done before and if you want to know what it is sooner rather than later, then why don't you take a moment and sign up for our weekly newsletter?

Friiiiiday.

Need another reason to move to San Fransisco? How about Printed Matter 3 at GRSF. It opens Saturday, February 16 (happy birthday, dad) and includes so many artists we love I'm not even going to list them.

Remember when you were a kid in school on Fridays and your teacher would read to you because the teacher knew, as all teachers do, that no one could concentrate on work when it's Friday afternoon?

Welcome to TS Long Story Friday.
Installment 1

On Valentines Day:

I've heard it was created by Hallmark. I've heard it's based on a Saint. Regardless of what I heard, it's for suckers. If you're single and say that people will think you're jealous. If you're double and say that people will think you're ungrateful. Call me what you will, I'm gonna tell you a story.

My friend just told me what he did for a certain girl yesterday and I almost dropped what I was doing and my eyes went fuzzy for a sec because it was the sweetest Valentine's gesture I've ever heard of. I didn't even think they existed. Unfortunately, I can't tell you about it because c'mon these are real people and it's their right to privacy.

So Instead I will tell you about the OTHER sweetest Valentine's gesture of all time. I even actually witnessed this one.

The scene was fifth grade. We were ten. At ten, girls had boyfriends. Did I have a boyfriend? I did not. Was this a status thing? Yes, I think so. Was I jealous? For sure. For sure, guys.

However, the boy that I had a crush on was dating my friend. This boy was a boy unlike the others. He always looked dazed and like he had just gotten out of bed. He was small and super quiet but super funny but hands OFF - he was dating my neighbor. I admired them, together. They were totally perfect and totally kind to each other.

So on the morning of Valentine's Day I was sitting beside my friend in homeroom. People were still waiting for class to begin but the flurry of gift exchanges was dying down. Mostly it was all pretty average. A stupid perforated Valentine's card here, a small heart-shaped box of candy there.. What I noticed most was how embarrassed all the boys looked giving their gifts. It's like they couldn't get them out of their hands fast enough! And then they were gone - to their seats, to their respective classrooms, to the bathroom to be sick, I don't know. Who gets boys?

Class begins. And shortly thereafter who wanders into our classroom (not his) after the teacher already has already called our attention? Yes. My crush/my friend's boyfriend. He does not look embarrassed in the least. He just looks slightly dazed (as usual) because he has overslept (as usual) and is late for school (yup). He quietly walked across the room with an ENORMOUS heart-shaped box of chocolates under one arm and - and here's what matters - a small cactus in the palm of his other hand.

A cactus. Honestly. This story is for real.

My dudes. My heart. It was the smallest most fuzziest little cactus of a thing ever. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of the cactus world. And he was so proud of it. My friend, however, was quick on the chocolates, slow on the cactus. To be expected I guess.. of a completely blind and heartless girl! The cactus was him! Couldn't she see? If ever in my life I've seen someone give a gift that exactly replicates them on a fifth grade level, this boy was handing her the funniest, smallest, quietest little cactus and saying "be mine."

Well, in the end he didn't leave her for me just because I was feelin him on the cactus front. And seriously, I think they dated until high school. Which is totally fine. I was busy anyway.

Busy listening to my walkman.

The morals of this story:

If you are a romantic, next Valentine's: think cacti.

If you are a heartbreaker, consider this new screenprint just released by our friend Ryan Jacob Smith.

Or, if you want to keep her guessing, try this one Ryan released with Tiny Showcase.

Ok. On your marks, it's the weekend, go!

Wowzies McGowzies! How's about that Jon Han, huh?

We are fresh out of Jon's "Kite" print but fret not, there's plenty more of his work to be seen on his portfolio site. He's got a blog too, just in case you wanted some text along with your imagery. I love that piece he did for the New York Times back in late 2007. His Globe Investor illustration is a beauty too.

Happy Monday Jon, here's some frostbite!

Gee, thanks New England weather. I appreciate that one. While the rest of you are celebrating not having your roof torn off by icy Noreaster winds, why don't you sign up for the Tiny Showcase mailing list? We'll be sending list members a sneak peak at this week's Tiny Showcase artist tomorrow. Can't wait until tomorrow? Well, how about this:

Subtle Circle, the work of Shea'la Finch and Nigel Peake, has just released their "Beer and Skittles Collect-ion." You can pick up a super limited-edition hand-printed t-shirt OR one of 25 hand-printed, painted and inked prints signed by the artists.

Look sharp, Showcasers. Andreas Samulesson designed some sick, as in jaw-dropping,