bARTer Sauce Travels to Sacramento, CA

Some of you probably already know about bARTer Sauce. It's my experiment in trading for art and odd objects. Whatever I get -- I trade for something else -- and everyone I trade with has to tell me a story.

The project was supposed to last for one year, but it's been over four years at this point and it is still going strong. I have made hundreds of trades with people all over the US, Canada, Mexico and the UK. I've met some crazies and some people who have become friends for life.

This year, one of my favorite Sauce Traders, Nicolas Caesar, approached me about doing a bARTer Sauce art show at Side Show Studios in Sacramento, CA. I thought it sounded like great fun. I would ship the items in The Sauce that are available for trade (21 at this point!) and Nik would display them and also handle any trades from the Sacramento-ers.

I had huge signs printed with the stories that were submitted with each available item. Some of the past Sauce traders shipped their artwork to display at Side Show as well. It's gonna be a blast!

Are your heart strings tugged? Well, I normally pay out-of-pocket for all bARTer Sauce expenses: shipping, printing flyers, advertising, etc. but I am hoping to get some folks to chip in to help ship bARTer Sauce to and from Sacramento and cover the cost of having the signs printed.

I was just accepted for a Kickstarter campaign. They are awesome. It gives you a platform to do funraising. People make pledges and then if you meet your goal, your project gets funded. Yay!

Help me meet my goal of $500 and get some cool stuff in the process!

Newest bARTer Sauce Trade: Mondo JubJub

bARTer Sauce's added a new trade to the family of currently available objects.

I gave Nik (a frequent Sauce trader and proprietor of scary-art.com) a painting I called "Proud Green Boobs" and a huge metal bra to cover some huge boobs that I call "Full Metal Bra."

He gave me this painting called "Mondo JubJub" and a book called "Aku Aku: The Secret of Easter Island."

Read Nik's answers to my "interview" questions.

"What's bARTer Sauce" you ask. What's bARTer Sauce?!

bARTer Sauce is an experiment in trading for art and odd objects. Whatever I get -- I offer up for trade for something else. And everyone I trade with has to tell me a story. That's pretty much the poops of it.

The bARTer Sauce website is no longer Orange and Green

My wonderful husband, Doug built me a new website for bARTer Sauce for Christmas last year. Today he finally finished it (Eh-hem. Snicker). I designed the last website. It was orange and green. There is nothing more that we need to say about that. The new site is built in Drupal, a database driven, open source, content management system that is perhaps a close second in the "love of my life" competition. Doug's first. Always. Now I just need to post all the trades I'm behind on due to website launching excitement! Check back next week for a whole passel of new available trade items -- including a figure drawing book that originally didn't include any penises on the male forms. Someone went through the book and drew a penis on each male figure. Then -- a puritan went through and made underwear on many of the men with white out. It's quite possible the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Well. Maybe not.

bARTer Sauce EXPLODED

For some reason there has been a renewed interest in bARTer Sauce, my experiment in trading for art and odd objects. The idea is that whatever I get, I trade for something else. And everyone I trade with has to tell me a story. This past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of trades and trade offers. Ba-zang!

Here's what I got from Will recently (click on the links to read the stories that came with each item): 

A Russian book (Will got Wedding of the No Face Couple in Exchange)

A French Telephone (Will got Terror for Terror in exchange)

This Weird Orange Cross with stuff smooshed into it all over (Will got the Stuffed Dooky Kiss in trade). This cross also came with a somewhat heart-wrenching story about a man named Phil who advertises his "skills" on matchbooks. 

And finally, the pride of pack 314: A trophy shaped like a totem pole commemorating the 1979 Cake Bake. Woot! (Will received a slightly broken Hugs for Jesus statue in exchange)

I'm afraid I had to make an example of Will. You see, many times people I'm trading with send along "extras" with their trades. Things that are odd, yes, but that now I have to deal with. You see, part of the idea behind bARTer Sauce is that I trade for odd things -- BUT THEN I TRADE THEM AWAY -- to other people. For them to enjoy (translation= "deal with"). 

Will was no exception. In fact, the trophy and the book were not sanctioned trade items.  So here's what happened (and what will happen in the future to all Sauce traders who send me "extras"): I "punished" Will by sending him one bARTer Sauce item (of my choice) for each "extra" he sent me. At first Will did not understand this punishment and set about trying to tell me what to send. He did not understand at all. 

You see, this was an opportunity for The Sauce. An inventory overhaul opportunity. And I took it. Will received the Hugs for Jesus statue, which, while hilariously named, is not all the wonderful to look at -- now especially since he arrived a bit worse for the travel and was in several pieces. 

Enjoy Will! Enjoy!

bARTer Sauce 7 the Empire Carpet Man

Remember him? Empire Carpet?

588-2300 emPIRE!

I remember him from my college days in Peoria, IL (I know -- you feel for me. You should). Those commercials would always interrupt The Simpsons.

Now, bARTer Sauce is the proud temporary owner of TWO Empire man Bobblehead dolls. 

One is in pristine condition in the original box (not that that will ever matter under any circumstances) and the other has been ripped free of the original box that it was so carefully shipped in because I had to see what it looked like -- and quite frankly -- I wanted to play with it. Mind your own damn business.

Ever wonder about the history of Empire Carpet?

Me neither.

Curious how Empire Man made it into my hot, little hands? 

Read Sean's story.

Read Sean's answers to my "interview questions."

bARTer Sauce is an experiment in trading for art and odd objects. Everything I get -- I trade for something else. And everyone who trades with me has to tell me a story. I document all the trades and stories on my website: bartersauce.com.

Check it out.

Trade with me.

NOW.

I'm SICK -- but Look What I Got

I sneezed yesterday at work and all of a sudden, I'm completely sick. It was weird. For the past few days, I've felt like I was fighting something off and I think that sneeze was my last chance to rid my body of whatever was trying to get in. My body lost and now I'm in my jammies doped up on all kinds of decongestant and cough syrup. I apologize in advance if this blog is "wackier" than normal. And now...the bARTer Sauce update:

bARTer Sauce is an experiment in trading for art and odd objects. The basic idea: whatever I get, I trade for something else. And then I trade that thing for something else again. And on and on. The only rule: everyone who trades with me has to tell me a story. About anything. Just a story.

First Jen -- I call her Jen Snuffalupagus because she has a really long last name and I can't pronounce it. She traded me these two pieces for a giant painting of a pigface.

Here's us making the trade at my studio: Then Tara traded me one of the Twisted Tree t-shirts that she designs and screen prints for a painting of a two headed boy. Here's us making the trade at the EtsyRAIN show in Kenmore.

And finally, the vintage, tattooed farting duck that I got from Nik for a Red Screamer. Here's the awesome farting duckie:

Heck yeah! If you want to trade for anything you saw here, visit bARTer Sauce, create an account and send me a trade offer. There's more available for trade than just what you see here. Check out the full list.

Look What I Got - A Double Sauce Post

My two most recent bARTer Sauce trades are both terrifying and also very, very, very, super-duper cool. First, Nik from Scary-Art.com (who is a rather frequest Sauce trader) gave me this painting of a Two-Headed Boy and a Robotic Bug sculpture for an Evil Looking Doll Lamp and a Space Alien in a Ship. Two-Headed Boy makes me giggle. He has so many eyes. And the teeny, tiny fangs are terrifying. And the Robotic Bug...... He's silver ....and POINTY!

And then on Wednesday, Gary traded me these four "Punked Up Nun" sculptures. I put them in the window of my shop and people have been walking by all day and shreiking. Awesome.

A close-up of my favorite: Sister Mary Dreadlocks:

If you're asking yourself, "What the hell is she talking about?" then you probably don't know about bARTer Sauce, my experiment in trading for art and odd objects. You should check it out. It's sometimes funny.

Look What I Got

I call it "Super Bright Kisses" for reasons I think might be obvious. I recently did a bARTer Sauce trade with a nice lady named Laura from my EtsyRAIN group. She makes pottery and stuff and sells it in her Etsy shop: LAS Designs. You should buy one of her mugs. I have two and I drink coffee out of them all the time. I highly recommend coffee -- and Laura's mugs. Read Laura's story that came with the bARTer Sauce trade. Read about the trade. Here's some pictures of Laura's super-cutie-potato-face son who came to the trade too and seemed obsessed with Shower Art. He's a winner in my book:

Here's Laura and I doing the trade at the September First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square. I always stick my tongue out for the first picture for some reason. And the second shot is where I go for moderately normal. If you would like to trade me for "Super Bright Kisses" or anything else that is currently available through bARTer Sauce, get in touch -- rosalie(at)bartersauce.com. What the hell is bARTer Sauce? It's an experiment in trading for art and odd objects. The only rules: Whatever I get, I trade for something else. And everyone who trades with me, has to tell me a story.

Still Life With Teeth - An Art Remake

Long, long ago, I traded Ron Reid, the manager of The Comedy Underground (which re-opens in it's new location on September 9th) a painting of Will Ferrell in exchange for a still life that he purchased from a possibly homeless-ish man. It was a super good trade on his end (he got a painting of Will Ferrell) an it was not such a super good trade on my end (I got this)

This is part of bARTer Sauce, my experiment in trading for art and odd objects.

This one happened to be both. And honestly (sorry Ron) I wasn't sure if anyone would ever trade me for it.

Then Nik came into my life. He runs scary-art.com and he wanted the still life because he said he was going to put faces on the stuff inside. Well, he did. And I wasn't sure what to expect, but I love the end result:

It's FANTASTIC!

I tried to pick my favorite little character guy but I'm at a loss. It's a dead heat tie between the mosquito eating the brain out of the jar on the top right - the weird jar baby on the top left -- or the weird guy with the top hat in the front. Who cares! They're all awesome! Visit www.bartersauce.com to read about more of my recent trades for art and odd objects. And....if you're not too tired from that visit, check out Shower Art - waterproof art you can hang in your shower with a suction cup. Or anywhere else. We're no dictaors.

bARTer Sauce : Single Parent of a PaperBagSkeletonPuppet

Best bARTer Sauce trade ever!

bARTer Sauce : Single Parent of a PaperBagSkeletonPuppet

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Some Artists and Stuff

These three bARTer Sauce participants have art shows that I should have told you about a long, long time ago.

Staci is showing at Revolution Coffee until April 28th. Check out her website: http://www.stacirgraveley.com/. We all missed her opening reception, but that's the kind of thing that happens when you have to adhere to the limits of linear time. Staci knows we were all there in spirit. Mark sent me a postcard about his show at Penn Cove Pottery (26184 SR20 Coupevile, WA). The gallery is open Monday - Saturday from 10am-5:30pm and the show runs through May 19th. Check it out!

Stacy (a.k.a. Dangerine) emailed me about a show but I'm not sure if it's still going on. You tell me. After you go there to check. Cafe Shachor by Beth's Cafe at the corner of Linden & Winona & 74th. Her paintings are there. Hells Yeah! And for the rest of you. If you've traded with bARTer Sauce and have something cool coming up or if you've done something noteworthy, send me an email or post a comment here and I'll help you get the word out. And in closing, some Shower Art for you to enjoy.

Oh man...I’m human again

It's true. I got so sick that I not only turned into an actual zombie, but I stopped my whole Giving Up plan. I stopped going to work. I stopped breathing almost. I stopped pretty much everything except laying in bed and moaning, "I don't feel so good." whenever Doug happened to stop playing Wii to make me some tea. Poor guy. Now he has it. He's much tougher than I was though. So, I just wanted to apologize for not updating y'all on my progress. I think the experiment is over for now, but I plan to do a larger project called: Giving Up and Giving Focus -- in the future. Basically I would plan out one year of my life and give up one thing and focus on one thing each week. It would require lots of self discipline and be hard and stuffs. I look forward to it. But right now I'm just going to concentrate on getting well for the big, Buy Stuff Day that's coming up. Doug and I have big plans to wear pajamas all day and watch Mystery Science Theatre movies. I can't be sick for that!

No Dairy - Yeah Right

So, yeah, I did not do so well this week. It all started when I did another I Heart Rummage show (their Christmas one called I Heart Indie Crafts -- if you missed it, you are SORRY).  Anywho, again with the free doughnuts.  I caved.  I ate a doughnut.  I'm not sure if they have dairy or not, but I'm relatively certain that since they taste so good, they do....they do have dairy.  I have to get away from these free doughnuts!

Then, at lunch (same day) I went to the Seattle Center House and it was filled with people and screaming children so I thought...Okay, I'll just go to Starbucks.  Fine.  Normally I never give them any of my money, but given the circumstances and the fact that they were right in front of me.  I caved.  I bought some pesto pasta salad that I really did think had no dairy in it.  I really, really did.  Then ate it while I waited in line for my Americano.  And waited.  And waited.  For some reason the barista is making every drink wrong so she has to make each one at least two or three times.  It takes at least 20 minutes.  Or at least enough time for me to finish my pasta salad.  Then it takes some more time because I have nothing to do but really familiarize myself with the label....which lists the ingredients....which includes dairy.  Damn.

THEN - (same day) later we go out for Thai food with my studio partner, Kimberly.  We order Crab Delight.  I should have made this week, I'm giving up all dairy unless it's in a crab delight because there was no way I wasn't eating those.  No way.  It's just not possible by any stretch of the imagination. 

So there's my foibles for the week.  I think this is the worst job I've done so far.

The current week: No eating after 7pm.  It worked for me yesterday. I'll keep you posted.

No Dairy - What I've Learned So Far

Here's what I've learned so far by not having dairy:

1. Soy milk is disgusting when you put it in coffee.  It takes like fake nuts and vanilla and beans all at once and the after-taste is worse than most things I can think of.

2. Semi-warm soy milk sitting in coffee you have had on your desk all day is really, really, really disgusting when you pick it up absentmindedly to take a sip.  I would have done a spit take if this wasn't a semi-new job.

3. Popcorn has dairy in it.  Yes, you heard me.  Popcorn has dairy in it.  We get free popcorn at work and I went to make a bag (disregard the part about how it's buttered popcorn) and discovered that popcorn contains MILK.  Really?  Why?  How?  I ate it anyway.  It shouldn't have dairy, so in my mind, it doesn't have dairy.

4. Don't yell at your husband when he goes to put butter on noodles so they don't stick together.  It's not like you're actually adversely affected by dairy.  You're just doing a dumb experiment.

I'm sitting here now drinking black coffee and loving it.  Anything is better than soy milk.  Speaking of -- anyone interested in a big thing full of soy milk -- it's not even open.  I stocked up in preparation for this week but I will not be needing that.  Not at all.

Hearts,

Rosalie

p.s. I just posted a bunch of new Shower Art (waterproof art you can hang in your shower with a suction cup) on my Etsy site.  Check it out. 

No Wheat - Last Day

It's my last day of not eating wheat.  I think I'll make it. 

Although after I cheated with the bagel and told you it wouldn't happen again, I ate tortellini (what could I do -- it was free) and a cookie.  Both of which most likely had wheat in them.  But since there is no way to know for sure, we'll say there wasn't. 

There.  I came clean.  I feel better.  Cleaner. 

No dairy week.  I'm not looking forward to that.  I think I just realized that means NO CHEESE.  Now what is the point of that?

Self Control and My Lack Of It

It's been awhile. I've been getting ducks in a row. I finally finished and now I don't know what the heck to do with them. Stupid ducks. While I was spending the last eleven straight days doing things that other people wanted to do, I realized....(drumroll) I need some time to do things that I like to do. To take care of myself. Wow. Revelation! This also led me to start thinking about my obvious lack of self control. It's difficult for me to censor myself or not throw something at you from across the room because I think it's funny. And while I can't do anything about those things...(or don't want to) I CAN do something about my belly. My Christmas present to myself (yes, I said Christmas. I said it. Not holiday. Christmas) is to lose 20 pounds by Christmas (see, I said it again). The bad news: in order to do that, I'll have to exhibit some form of self control. I considered it. I pondered it. I thought about it. I sat on it. And here's what I came up with: I like weird projects so I'm turning this into a crazy project and I would love company. If you want to participate with me...do it. Just jump in. Here's the plan: There are nine weeks left until Christmas (yep, that's the third time I said it) and for each of those weeks I will either concentrate on one specific thing or give up one specific thing. I'll track my results and see which week works the best. And I'm just assuming that by doing this, I'll lose around 20 pounds. This is not based on scientific fact or any research whatsoever. No doctors were involved in this plan. Oct 22 - This coming Monday. Giving up alcohol for one week. Oct 29 - Giving up sugar for one week. Nov 5 - Giving up bread for one week. Nov 12 - Giving up wheat for one week. Nov 19 - Giving up dairy for one week. Nov 26 - Not eating after 7:00pm for one week. Dec 3 - Eating vegan for one week and giving up alcohol at the same time. Dec 10 - Giving up sugar for one week. Dec 17 - Doing Bikram Yoga every day for one week. Okay, who wants in?

bARTer Sauce in the Seattle Times!

A trading experiement that I've been working on for the last two years was just featured in The Seattle Times The project is called bARTer Sauce and I trade for art and odd objects. Any crafter/artists out there who trade with me will get a write up of your shop, a permanent link on my website and an email to my mailing list as promotion. The website Here's the items currently available for trade And here's the form to submit a trade offer The Seattle Times must have some kind of following too, because not moments after the article was posted online, I got a trade offer for this Barbie Monster Fish. YES!