SAVING AGAIN THE [WOOD]GRAIN...

by Erkuden Sakana, Company Secretary:
City of Craft is over and done with, marking the Misanthrope Specialty Co.'s last show of the year.

(photo courtesy of tara.bursey)

Congratulations are in order to the organizers of this fine event. Though the Company speaks only from its own perspective, the show, now in its third consecutive year was a roaring success. No small feat in such dubious economic times.

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In tangentially related news, the Misanthrope Specialty Co. sold out of the last of its wildly popular Holy Fucking Shit greeting cards at City of Craft.

(all 100 cards, scooped up by a frenzied public)

There is no shortage of woodgrain enthusiasts out there; or within the Company, for that matter. Infact woodgrain, both real and faux, has had something of a resurgence in craft and design circles in recent years. Some of the Company's favourite merchandise and most successful merchandise has involved the perfect union of two of its chief loves in the form of woodgrain labeling tape. Unfortunately, the Dymo corporation hasn't produced this stuff since 1973.

(detail from one of the Company's best-selling greeting cards)

The Misanthrope Specialty Co. has managed to maintain it's stock of labeling tape these past ten years by raiding the dusty stationary section of various small office supply and drug stores throughout its members' travels across the North America, but the discontinued rolls of woodgrain are ever more scarce. The aforementioned woodgrain trend, coupled with the scrapbooking craze, has also done much to accelerate the depletion of the increasingly coveted tape.

(1970 magazine ad for Dymo label tape)

Now the day many of the Misanthropes had long been dreading is upon us. The Company stockroom is down to its final roll of 3/8" Dymo woodgrain, with no current leads on any replenishment. But all is not yet lost.

(prototypes for the Company-made woodgrain tape,
in a variety of colours)

The Chief Engineer and Minister of Acquisitions have been diligently working in anticipation of this problem. Sunday's meeting saw the timely unveiling of their prototypes for the Company's own line of woodgrain embossing tape. There is still some fine-tuning to be done, but the results are encouraging.

Needless to say, there was much rejoicing.

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BYPASS ELECTION...

by Heywood McGillicuddy, Chairman:
The Company has received a number of inquiries as to whether or not its pieces for the Home & Away (& In-Between) group show are for sale.

The short answer is yes. However, because it our members' explicit wish not to pay the Cream Tangerine Gallery Cafe its 30% commission, any persons wishing to purchase any of the displayed items are invited to circumvent the cafe by contacting the Company directly.

While it is accepted practice to for a gallery to take a percentage of the sales, it has recently come to the Company's attention that the Cream Tangerine Cafe has already been paid for the use of the space for the exhibition by City of Craft as part of its 2009 installation programming. The Misanthrope Specialty Co. cannot abide this greedy double dipping by a business that is already benefiting from the show's promotion -- not to mention the drink sales from the opening reception and from the thousands of people who come to shop at City of Craft's main event.

The Company can speak only for itself, but regards this attempt to chisel an additional fee from the artists the cafe is supposedly sponsoring, at an event someone else is paying por no less, as an insult to all involved. We also wish to make clear that our gripe is directly with the cafe, and does not reflect our opinion of either the City of Craft organizers, or the show's hard-working curator.

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UNFLATTERING CITY OF CRAFT...

by Erkuden Sakai, Company Secretary:
The Company is pleased to announce its participation in the third annual City of Craft spectacular. It's a two-day show this year.

(show poster by Amy Borkwood)

Citizens of Toronto are well advised to do their holiday shopping here, and take part in the numerous free workshops. A measly two dollars gets you through the doors. That's less than the price of a decent cup of coffee.

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PUTTING THE CARDS BEFORE THE HOARDS...

by Erkuden Sakai, Company Secretary:

(doodled by Becky Johnson)

Another Sunday meeting dedicated mainly to replenishing the Company's inventory of greeting and message cards. City of Craft is just around the corner and what was only two weeks ago believed to be a hearty stockpile of goods has dwindled down to nearly nothing due to another sudden boost in demand.

(photo by Erkuden Sakana)

Though a preliminary skimming of the Internet has yet to yield a concrete answers, such overwhelming swells in popularity can usually be attributed to being favourably mentioned in some broadly read weblog. Until this mystery is solved, the Company sends its sincere thanks blindly into the ether.

(photo by Cottonwood Fields)

The downside of this the cards' success, ofcourse, is that the am mount of time spent making them is encroaching ever more into the time formerly spent on the Company's sundry other projects. It's a blessing which by small increments is becoming a problem, and a topic which will no doubt be tackled at next week's gathering. The Misanthrope Specialty Co., after all, considers itself to be more than a purveyor of handmade greeting cards.

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VOTER TURNDOWN...

by Erkuden Sakai, Company Secretary:

The Misanthrope Specialty Co. cordially invites the public to the opening reception for the Home and Away (and In-Between) group show. Friday November 4th, in the Cream Tangerine Gallery Café at the Great Hall.

(show logo by Gillian Wilson )

The process of selecting which pieces to submit to the show turned out to be a surprisingly contentious one , as the Company, brimming with the seething cocktail of it's constituents' multifarious objectives, principles and opinions found itself mired in the pitfalls of democracy.

("Saint Joseph" by the members of the Company)

With nearly half the Company opposed to a public exhibition in the first place, and the narrow majority divided among itself, votes were deadlocked on a number of possible submissions. Indeed, of the dozens of proposed submissions, it now seems almost miraculous that four pieces managed to garner enough votes to make it into the show. But this is just the sort of internal conflict that the Misanthrope Specialty Co. lives for.

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Home and Away (and In-Bewteen) runs from December 3 to the 13th, and features work by Lizz Aston, Fiona Bailey, Amy Borkwood, Leah Buckareff, Marta Chudolinska, Heather Fagan, Meags Fitzgerald, Sara Guindon, Genevieve Jodouin, Serena McCarroll and Tyler Brett, Laure McGregor, jen Spinner, Gillian Wilson and others.

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HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS...

by Erkuden Sakai, Company Secretary:
It's no secret that the Company prefers to exhibit its work at its invitational Clubhouse events. Its membership is largely comprised of secretive and exlusionists curmudgeons, loathe to have just anybody come sully their work with their dirty eyeballs and platitudes.

(photo by Lydia Caulpepper)

This week, however, the Company voted, by squeakingly narrow margin, in favour of airing some of it's dirty linens in public.

It isn't easy to turn down Tara Bursey -- Toronto's ubiquitous liaison between the ofttimes parallel worlds of Art vs. craft. She is curating the upcoming "Home and Away (and In-Between)" group show as part of City of Craft 2009's installation programming, and has invited the Misanthrope Specialty Co. to participate.

("This Town Will One Day Drink Us Dry"
by the Misanthrope Specialty Co.)

Although the Company has not yet voted on which pieces it will be submitting to the show, it's a safe bet that atleast a couple of small motel stationary drawings will be worked in, as per Ms. Bursey's request.

* * *

In other news, the first batch of rushes for the Company's yet untitled film in progress are back from the processing lab.

(A scanned sampling the first 16mm footage shot by the Company)

After weeks of waiting with bated breath, the members of the Misanthrope Specialty Co. finally huddled in a darkened Bunker to evaluate the budding fruits of their labour. The results were promising.

It is with renewed vigor that the men and women of now hit the streets to shoot more scenes for what Cotton confidently predicts will be "an instant classic."

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JOUAL DE VIVRE...

by Heywood McGillicuddy, Chairman:
Yes, my friends, the rumours you've heard wispered on the streets of la métropole are perfectly true. The Misanthrope Specialty Co. has infact wormed its sticky way into the Belgo building.

(photo by Erkuden Sakana)

The Company now counts Maison Kasini among it's bedfellows. And though it's far too early to divulge plans for the future, the fair citizens of Montéal can in the meantime find an assortment of our message cards and open run prints on the shelves of Kasini's ArtShop.

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