Dog tags.

Hello Everyone!

The past few weeks have been crazy! I had a minor scare on Saturday when I received an email saying the funds had been deposited into my bank account, however my bank account said otherwise. On top of that I accidentally made two Amazon accounts with the same email and different passwords... how that is possible I have no idea... so I couldn't log into my Amazon account to check on the deposit- it would just send me to an error page saying that the email account was already in use by someone else. It was stressful. Luckily, like a few people had said, the money delay was probably a Sunday issue. Sure enough Monday morning the funds appeared in my account. Phew!

I was mostly stressed because as of Monday (read: 8 days till hanging) I still had not ordered the prints. I called the lab and they said they could have all my prints (and yours) done by Friday! Which is way faster than I expected.

Livia asked me about how I was going to show the names of the prints. I hadn't even planned on putting names up but the question got me thinking. The lab offers to drill holes in the corner of the prints so that you can hang them by wire. And the lab also makes metal photo dog tags. How cool would it be to have the name of the print and edition number hanging from a dog tag off the lower corner of a print? So cool.

So yesterday I set Livia on the task of pricing engraved dog tags. (I felt like the photo dog tag would distract from the print). She walked down the huge hill we are staying on, to a pet store that only had brass ones. There was another fancy-pants dog place in Mill Valley we checked out, however they only had chrome ones which, since the prints are on aluminum, felt too fancy. I don't want the tags to outshine the prints! However, on the counter they had silver and copper hand stamped dog tags ...for $24 a piece!!! I fell in love with how they looked. So we left the store and I started calling around to jewelry enthusiasts and DIY'ers to see if they knew where to get a stamping kit and the metal dog tags. I was so excited about the idea. Plus, it gives Livia something to do. She is so eager to work but I keep running out of projects because she is so efficient.

At dinner that night I was telling my Grandparents about my idea to custom make the tags. My Grandpa said "if it has anything to do with Metal, talk to Mark. That is his area of expertise!" I had completely forgot! My uncle Mark owns Paragon Machine Works- a machine shop that makes custom titanium, aluminum and copper parts. I walked over to his house and interrupted his family dinner. He was super willing to help and seemed, even for his calm demeanor, excited. He gave me the catalog for a company that makes metal tags in a variety of shapes and allowed me to put them on his account. He also lent me a letter stamping kit!

So one day after coming up with the idea, we have the tags ready to be produced. How exciting.

Tomorrow morning Livia and I are waking up to get on the 4am ferry heading to Alcatraz for the Sunrise Ceremony. Native American tribes all over California come to dance. It will be freezing. The forecast says 37º. Wish us luck! Poor Livia, she thought she was on vacation from the cold weather!


I am really very excited for the show.

So much love,
Frankie