Okay, let’s be honest: it’s been a rough year all around, and most of us planning any kind of giftgiving looked at calendars this week and realized “You mean it’s NOT still August?” For everyone else, we’re looking at our list and figuring that lumps of coal might be seen as “ironic,” but we’re not quite ready to dump the litter box in their beds just yet. For you lot, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with purchasing things for yourselves, if only to take some of the stress off until spring. Either way, we’ve got you covered.
To begin, I was lucky enough to meet Nicole Pangas at the Austin Oddities & Curiosities Expo show back last June, and we bonded on multiple levels during our short conversation. Firstly, we Michigan kids stick together, and secondly, her hand-thrown pottery has a decided charm that you aren’t going to find anywhere else. (An important consideration is that if you like something, snag it as soon as you can: she regularly announces online popup shows through her newsletter, and the items in the popups tend to disappear.)
Some of you may remember Scott Elyard from the big discussion on designer masks from last year, and his Dunkleosteus masks are still available in multiple colors. (And yes, I wear mine constantly.) The scary part is that his recent Advanced Dunkleosteus & Dragons T-shirt is such a bad pun that it inspired a new carnivore enclosure. Go buy the shirt: I’ll pay him royalties from the concept myself.
Finally, another Oddities & Curiosities cohort deserving of wider exposure and inventory clearout is Kaijuju Designs, specializing in, well, eyes. Well, eyes and donuts. You want art that goes up behind you on Zoom calls and guarantees that nobody will expect you to come back to the office any time soon, right?
To be continued…