I mean, yes, we’re sinking … but the music is exceptional

One of my all-time favorite blackout poems is now an affordable print at 20×200!

Details

- Signed and numbered edition of 50
- 26″ x 40″ on 100 pound paper

Backstory

The minute I saw the GBV posters that my friends Satch Grimley and Jaime Cervantes screenprinted, I knew I wanted to collaborate with them on a big Newspaper Blackout print. We batted around a few ideas, came up with a design we liked, and I brought my camera down to Red Bluff Studio on Saturday and filmed them working their magic.

Watch the video of them printing:

The fellas will be printing at the Art Authority during SXSW, so if you’re in town next month for the festival, be sure to check them out!

On Sundays now, Meghan and I meet in our library and pack orders from the store for an hour or two, then on Monday Meg takes them to the post office to ship. (Read more about how things work…)

Here’s our “warehouse” of supplies:

The whole store experiment has been really great. And it’s not just sending the work out directly to people’s doorsteps, but also the chance to collaborate with my awesome wife. She’s super-organized and runs the show. I couldn’t do it without her. Thanks, honey.

And thanks to everybody who’s placed an order! Here’s what’s on sale: store.austinkleon.com

I am so excited to announce that my friends at Wire & Twine are handprinting our first-ever Newspaper Blackout t-shirt. I’m a customer, so I know their impeccable design taste and the high-quality of their products, but I also know that they’re good Ohio folks, based out of Oxford, a small town where I spent four of my favorite years.

“Creativity is subtraction.” It’s not a poem, it’s a rallying cry.

These tees are handprinted on American Apparel triblend atheletic heathered gray t-shirts. Which are super soft. (Meg and I own several.)

On sale now: store.austinkleon.com

Buy yours now! The preorder sale is now over. Check the store to see if more are available.

Very pleased to announce that my friend Jen Bekman and the rad gang at 20×200 are offering a new, affordable Newspaper Blackout print for sale!

The Travelogue

Fun fact: this is the poem that Renee Montaigne read on NPR’s Morning Edition in 2008.

Never bought from 20×200 before?  You’re gonna love it. Here’s an idea of what you’ll get when your print arrives. (You can also see the other 3 prints we have available through 20×200 in my store.)

Jen wrote a really lovely newsletter about the piece, some of which I wanted to share here:

I met Austin in person in Austin, TX, when I was there for SXSW, and was glad to get to spend time with him as he was on the brink of big things—spending time with artists on the brink of big things is one of the true joys of my job. His book—which you can pre-order on Amazon—was available in the conference’s bookstore. We went to dinner on the same evening that we both got to hold copies of it in our hands for the very first time. Austin was frazzled and flustered and flattered by the attention that was beginning to percolate. He was anxious about what was to come, and whether the book would sell, and what comes next when it does or it doesn’t.

There were four of us at dinner, each representing a compass point on the map of North America—California, Canada, New York and Texas—sitting at a picnic table on a scrappy patio beneath trees strung with Christmas lights, sipping sweet tea and eating barbecue and talking about poetry. I mean really talking about poetry, because as it turned out, all four of us are pretty big poetry nerds. It struck me then that for all the talk about what was to come, Austin’s accomplished some pretty amazing things already and those things deserved a good portion of the credit for convening us there that evening. And being there? That was pretty great.

With all the insanity going on in my life right now, the  giveaways, interviews, reviews, Amazon rank, etc., I really needed to read this.

To remember what’s important.

As I told the group that evening: the best part (for me) of being an artist and a writer is the people I’ve been able to meet–totally awesome people–whether it’s in blog comments, or on twitter, or in person over BBQ.

I’m a very lucky guy. So big thanks to y’all, and thanks to Jen.