I’ve been diligently painting each day for the 100 Day Project, and I’ve not been as consistent about sharing the progress. So without further adieu…

I’m working my way through the rainbow. First with red, then with orange, yellow, green, and now I’m on to blue. If you’ve been following along, here is a collection of the yellows and greens. I love seeing them all together—it gives me such a feeling of accomplishment!

Always the overachiever, I see that I’ve created two days for Day 42. So be it.

As soon as I finished the yellows, we took a really fun family trip to Hawaii. No plans other than to swim, soak up the sun, and do a little hiking. It was a perfect time to start with the greens, and you can see a bit of island influence in the images I chose.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite things that happened was swimming in the ocean and having sea turtles join us. Different than going out to snorkel with them—they had free range of the Pacific, and they seemed to be enjoying the people! It took every ounce of strength not to pet one or get in its way, and it was definitely a cool experience.

As for my work, I’m still working on a larger drawing/lino-cut for a continuous print. Letterpress printed wrapping paper? Wallpaper? We shall see. I’m slow at this, and that’s okay with me. Here’s a rough sketch:

Another fun project I’m working on is an invitation for a super special lady. I was writing as a warm up, and can give you a sneak peek of that:

That’s it for me—thanks for your eyes and attention, and feel free to drop a line.

Mahalo! xo Victoria

Here’s an update to my 100 Day Project: 2 more weeks of daily paintings! I’m a quarter of the way done, and I’m feeling the value of showing up for myself in this way everyday. The creativity and play-for-fun is coming back to me. Older ideas that I’ve been stewing on are closer to being realized. I’m losing my “inspired on demand” ethic and am thinking of the creative future. NOT EASY during this tumultuous time.

In my darker moments, I can’t imagine what the future even looks like—it’s the political shitshow that I worried about, and hate to see being realized. I have so much to say on this, but for now, will stay on the art.

A fun thing I’ve enjoyed doing, is recreating this old book cover into a book to hold all of these paintings. It’s a thing now! At the end of 100 days, I won’t have a bunch of loose sheets and it will be a perfect little package. Building a book backwards, based on the dimensions of the cover reminds me that I love building structures, and thinking 2 beats ahead in order to make the text block fit. It sparked the joy of early bookbinding days for me, and I’m grateful for that. Here’s a terribly shot video to show you!

Something else I’ve been meaning to get to in my painting practice, is creating multiples. I’d painted a portrait a few years ago, and I loved it. Someone bought it, and I was thrilled. When someone else asked if they could have a similar portrait, for some dumb reason I thought, “But I already painted that”. Like it wouldn’t be authentic or something if I were to repaint it? I’m not sure where I got that idea. To step back, and see the restrictions that I put on MYSELF is ridiculous. I’ve printed multiples for the past 25 years, but somehow a painting had to be impossibly unique. That’s some old, diamond-industry thinking. And while it would be technically impossible for me to create EXACT multiples, my thinking was pretty rigid.

And then I went to an art opening of painter Steve Keene. Some of you ‘90s darlings probably remember his work from Pavement’s Wowee Zowee album cover—he’s been around and steadily working for a long time. At this art opening, his work resonated with me on a whole new level. He was talking about his process—how he lines up multiple sheets at a time, and paints color-by-color across them all. I had to raise my hand in the questions portion, and ask him if he had ever been a printer. He HAD! He said no one had asked him before, but he worked for a short time as a screen printer in New York. It was clear as day to me, this fellow “spot printer” (letterpress and screen printers both print one color at a time)! It really has stuck with me, and I have yet to sit down with multiple panel to see what happens. If you haven’t heard of him before or need little inspiration, here’s a video on some of his work and process (safely skip ahead the first 2 minutes)—click here.

Lastly, if I didn’t need more proof from the Universe that it’s time to try this, I’ll post my latest thrift score. I found 18 of these unfinished quilt panels for 25 cents a piece. About a year ago, I listened to this story about an organization called the Loose Ends Project—they are a group of volunteers who finish people’s unfinished projects. As a longtime thrift shopper, I’m always seeing halfway done things. I always assume that the creator moved, got bored, or passed on. And since listening, I’m drawn to do the same. I don’t know who the person or people who created these was, but I love them. And look—multiples!

In the letterpress realm, I’m working on another thing I’ve been meaning to try—creating illustrations in a repeatable pattern and printing them. I don’t have anything to show yet, but it’s fun to pursue this without a computer. Years ago, I had seen Julia Rothman’s tutorial on how to do this, and it is speaking to me.

That’s it for now! Let me know if you’re working on anything fun. xo Victoria

I’ve been posting “a note” each day on my substack with just the day’s image. It’s fun, and it holds me accountable. It’s a quirky place to share, but I’m really trying to break myself of the meta platforms, so here we are! In case you’ve not seen them, here they are in their glory!

Like the exercise routine I put myself on to cope, this small, daily practice gives me a semblance of control in the most chaotic of times. Our current government is bonkers, and frankly, I don’t think it can sustain itself. So for this 100 days, I’m choosing to bet on myself. I will still be creating—even in the most depressing of times—and at the end of this period, I hope that our current regime will not be.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that today is International Women’s Day. I know historically that women have faced challenges and oppression, but my younger self never thought it would be happening to this degree in 2025. We have come SO far to have to work SO hard to keep going, but my money will always be on women. We will get it done, but it will take more time, focus, perseverance, and community—I am here for it.

I guess this segues nicely into last week’s art show at Faultline in Oakland. It was a wonderful turnout of some really amazing women. 100 in total, and we all came together to share in our accomplishments and joy of simply creating. I’ll share my finished piece here, in which my sentiment speaks for itself.

Here’s the blurb I wrote for it:

This piece was inspired by a photograph I took of a stranger in Italy—a brief, quiet moment that gave me pause. What was she thinking? Her stillness struck me, and in it, I found inspiration. In these tumultuous times, I often think, "...here we go again..." and wonder how we can find strength amidst the chaos. I believe it is in stillness that we can draw upon our fortitude—and I long for more of it.

To see the whole show, you can click here (10XTEN).

I want to share a wonderful video by artist Maira Kalman. She created a series of paintings called “Women Holding Things”. To watch her video, click here.

That’s it from me. More painting, and a few letterpress projects in the early phase so I’ll have more to show next time. Be well, and please keep in touch. xo

I’m back at it, and am about to embark on yet another #The100DayProject. I know, I swore after the last one I’d be done. What tends to happen is that I complete it, and feel so good about everything! Proud! Accomplished! And then I crash creatively.

Remember this epic, 1-can-a-day I painted? Here’s a snippet of them all together (they didn’t fit in the frame).

But, as we all know, these are rough times and the fact that I can put aside time everyday to make art is a luxury, and I will keep that mindset in place.

It’s like a marathon—you have to prepare and set yourself up for success. This year year I will get back to my painting practice, and this is the perfect opportunity.

So here’s what I’ve collected:

I know it doesn’t look like much, but I’ve had these old end sheets for YEARS. I collected them during a short stint I’d done at UC Berkeley, along with this lovely book cover. It’s perfect—raw junk (to some) that I will hopefully transform into something manageable and pretty (tbd) at the end of my 100 days. As you can see, these are all random-sized papers, so in the spirit of preparation, I trimmed them all to be no larger than a particular size, and made sure they’re all as large as they can be to paint on. This little trick is from the first 100 days, when I quickly realized that having some sort of order is helpful to just focus on the painting.

Here’s the after—video for textural reading!:

Now that I’ve got everything ready, I’m actually excited!

Other than that, I’m back home, it’s sunny, and I’m thinking about a victory garden for the new year. I’ve always been a gardener, having slacked off the past few years. During the lockdown, the backyard was my sanctuary, and I think this combined with artwork will be my saving grace for any downtime. If you know me, you know my absolute love of red crimson clover. Here is some just hanging out for the bees.

Last night I had the owl I’d been hearing fly over my head—I’m taking it as a sign to get back outside, and get my hands in the dirt.

Lastly, I’m a fool for not mentioning my Curiosity Shoppe on here. If you’re interested in easily supporting my work, you can click here. If you would like to work together on a custom project, I’m always available to email. That’s it for now!

Will you be participating in #The100DayProject? Leave a comment if you are, and I can be sure to cheer you along. xoxo Victoria

I’ve been working on a few letterpress projects lately—while some are not my story to tell, others I can! Here is the first color/press run of my Valentine this year. Please send your mailing address if you would like one!

With all that’s going on at such a rapid-fire pace in the world, I can only think that COMMUNITY is what is so important right now. Where we spend our time and just as important—our attention! If you are reading this, and think, “I could spend my time better elsewhere”—I applaud you. We’ve all gotten ourselves into a complicated situation these past two decades.

When I started my business, the internet was still somewhat novel. Remember—I started out by hand setting lead type! Prior to that, I bound and repaired old books. I put the Lud in Luddite. I did have a friend build a website, and thus I became part of the world-wide-web. My studio mate and I would come in the morning, and fire-up the internet (I can still hear the sound) and see if anyone had emailed us. We didn’t have access in our back-pockets yet. We both had landlines for work, and the ringing phones meant something.

Flash forward to social media, and we have an entirely new way of reaching people with our work. Or people could now reach us. You didn’t need to be in the same town, or have a sit-down meeting to get anything done. In the creative realm, this is incredible! But I feel like it has had some real downsides.

There have been times where I miss the face-to-face. I miss the slow intention. But even I wasn’t cynical enough to see what was coming. Our attention was being commodified and with that profit making—used against us. So here we are.

How do we fix this? COMMUNITY. Focus on where you spend your time and your money. Help your neighbors. Help people you don’t even know. This is the time for all good actions to go into play. And we fight.

Thanks for reading. xo Victoria