Hi Everyone, 

It's been a while since my last update, and a lot has happened in my life (and I trust in yours, too) since then. 

My last update came in March 2010, and it's hard to believe but it's now actually nearly May 2011. 

In case you were wondering, I got the map, I traced to grid, and I printed a giant copy of it around Thanksgiving. It's pretty awesome. Just ask anyone at the Gowanus Studio Space, 'cause it was hanging up there in the hallway for awhile. 

Other than that, I was rejected from Columbia in April 2010 and applied again in January 2011 and was again rejected at the beginning of this month. I showed some work last summer in New Orleans and I'm happy to announce that the same gallery has accepted my work again and I will actually be able to go to the opening this year because I just quit my job. Today is actually my first official day of unemployment, and what better way to spend it than writing all of you? I've achieved other miscellaneous things, in no particular order according to grandeur: I was in the IPCNY's Winter 2011 show, I'm going to attend Tamarind Institute's summer lithography workshop in July, and I made myself a website. All by myself. From freaking scratch. You should check it out if you haven't already: crayolajunkie.com. If you found yourself recieving my prints in the mail and were blown away by how awesome they were and how much you liked them and how much they made you want more, you can look at crayolajunkie.com/buy and buy things directly from me.  

On with it, yes? The real reason I'm writing you, as much as I'd like to detail the last 14 months of my life for you, has to do with some of your money and what I've decided to do with it.  As you might remember, I was insistant on giving a detailed account of where all the money went, and I have remained true and faithful to that. I actually have had about $300 in a savings account gaining about 4 cents a month for more than a year and I've been holding out for the right time. And alas, said time has come! 

Now seven of you generous and gorgeous folk donated $100. If you recall the detail of the $100 reward, it included a provision where I would donate $15 back to your project. Since none of you have made efforts towards this end, and there's tumbleweeds blowing around this saving account statement, I have taken the authority to donate this $105 to my good friend (and your fellow backer) Eric Diehl. He just launched a project with his friend called Auto-Paint and the general idea is that they are both awesome and super talented painters and they want to spend the summer driving across the country and painting plein air (which means, like, outside, from life, the old fashioned way). I honestly can't think of another artist/colleague/friend who is better suited to do something like this. He's super talented and I owe most of the great work I did at Pratt to competing against him for the "best in show" award. He mostly won, but he's gracious enough to say that he thinks I mostly won. What a doll. 

I mean seriously- Just check out this painting he did of me when we were both still young pups at Pratt. He's way better now, if you can believe it. 

Anyway. Thanks for the money and I know Eric will appreciate it too. Click on this link: Auto-Paint and give him more money. If anyone deserves it, he does. 

There is a handful of you that don't have your prints yet. I'm really, really, really sorry but I half blame you because I really want to give them to you in person. So there. I have them. They're wrapped up with your names and love notes and bows and all that just waiting for the next time I get to see your lovely face in person. Quit making me wait! I miss you! 

Thanks all, again, for everything you've done for me, and everything that you will do for me in the future. Map to Change Version 1.0 is coming, so watch out.

You're all as beautiful as ever,

Lots of love, 

Julia. 

Hi everybody,

I realize a lot of you may not be reading these anymore, and I did promise a lot of you to end, or at least cut back, on the "spam," but I'm not begging you for money anymore (for now), and I just really wanted to tell you all the GREAT NEWS!!!

Yeah! What could be greater than all the great news I've shared with you already? I know, what could be better than 167% funded?!

Try this on for size:

I have previously expressed my hesitation in ordering this $500 map that you all have supported me to do because the choice before me was either a) a 42" x 60" or something hard copy of the map (which you can't size up or down, or reduce the amount of information on, or reprint if you get it dirty or tear it (which everyone knows I would)), or b) a CD ROM version, which, up until a few days ago, I had no idea what format the files would even be in. I had written emails of varying content to the company with no response, so finally I called them.

When Judy called me back, and I asked what file types were on the disc, she didn't know and had to get back to me. She was very nice, and when she got back to me she wrote that the CD carried tiles of the map fit to print at 8.5x14. And a full version that you can't print from (WTF?). So OK fine, tiling xeroxes is one thing I'm WICKED good at, but it's a pain, and when you've done as much of this tiling as I have, you realize that each page out of the printer has its own skew, making tiling together a wall full of this stuff extremely accurately nearly impossible.

You see my problem?

So what is girl to do??

SO I wrote Judy back, and I was all, "That's a real bummer you can't just print the full thing. Is there any way you could get me deal if I say I'll buy both (list price $500 EACH). BTW, Here's my KICKSTARTER WEBSITE WHERE I PROPOSE THE PROJECT AND GOT 49 AWSOME PEOPLE TO GIVE ME 1600 BUCKS TO BUY THIS FROM YOU TO MAKE MY cute ART PROJECT."

And she totally WROTE BACK and SAID, and I paraphrase here to keep in line with the extensive privacy policy, "I'll give you two for one."

HELLLLLSSS YEAH.

I want you to understand that I really can't contain my excitement. I'm getting the wall map, and I'm getting the CD, and I only have to pay for one, even after I told them what I was going to do with it.

Honestly, I was a little afraid that if I told "them" what I was really going to do with the map, they wouldn't sell it to me.

So it's on the way. It's in the mail.

And soon your things will be, too, except for those of you who haven't responded to my info request. That's how I can know who isn't reading these, so I know who you are (and I know you're not reading this right now, either...). Maybe I will hold onto your gifts forever and ever, and maybe I will sell them to some one else. What I want to do is mail them to you. (But you're not reading this.) What will be creepy is when you get something in the mail from me, and you're like, I DID NOT give her my address!

Hope everything with all of you is going as great as everything with this project.

THANKS EVERYBODY. You're all beautiful and I love you.

Very truly yours,
Julia

Hello all,

How are all your beautiful and shining faces doing having lost an hour of sleep? Don't worry- it's not really lost, it's just been moved around.

You ought be happy to hear that much progress has occurred since update #6.

1. All your stuff is ready. You've just received a request for your mailing information. It is very important for you all to note that EVEN IF you have what you think you paid for already, I still need your mailing address for line item number two. (And even if you selected for no reward (how Franciscan of you) I still made you stuff.)

2. As I eluded to in my last update, I have materialized my gratification of all of your support into an edition of 49 silk screened post cards. I do apologize to all of the $5 pledgers because this action of extreme gratitude actually de-values your pledges while making everyone else's worth a little more.

Don't know what to do about it. The doing's all been done.

So, anyway, as I was saying, I believe it to be much more fun for me to actually mail all of these out (LIKE I PROMISED) than to hand off to anyone in person. This way, also, I can write a sensitively personal and caring note and I don't have to feel bashful in front of you. So I do really need your mailing address. IFF (that means IF and ONLY IF) you REALLY don't want me to mail it to you, or you don't have a good place to get mail, or some other unforeseeable (by me) reason that I just can't mail this to you, you've got to let me know so I don't go crazy over your blank cell in my spreadsheet.

3. One of my backers, Michael Kunitzky, is starting an open-use space in Crown Heights called LaunchPad: http://www.brooklynlaunchpad.org/LaunchPad/LaunchPad.html
Last weekend they held an opening for a silent auction to raise funds for this great space, and I donated work, and the auction is still going on I think until Monday. You should all check out the flickr page where all the donations are available to see: http://auction.brooklynlaunchpad.org
If you like something, you should send him an email and submit a bid. All proceeds go to helping them help people like me.

He said he'd give me a gallery show, so we like him. And I think we all like me. I know we all like helping me (that's what got you into this mess), so let's all help him help me.

4. Hell yeah! So even before my maps has a second layer on it, I've got a venue to show it (outside of my comfortable familiar womb of the Gowanus Studio Space, which does have way bigger walls (Sorry Mike)).

Rock on.

I would like to go on amusing you all (who are still reading) with my humorous but not over-the-top-slap-stick wit, but it's late and I need to be getting to bed.

Soooo PLEASE give me your address. I won't stalk you, I won't "drop by" unless you ask me to or say its OK, and I won't send you junk mail. I will send you his awesome stuff I made for you, and when the time is right, I will send you an invitation to my show.

G'night!

PS: Haven't actually spent any more of the money yet, so there's nothing to discuss in that department. Love yas!

And I know you're all like, give me my damn prints already!!

FINE! Take them! They're taking up valuable space in my overcrowded flat files.

Some of you, Tom, Shelly, Stephan, Marylin, Dratas, and Mom, are already enjoying them. I hope you like them.

As for the rest of you, I have some good news and I have some bad news.
The good new is that even if you pledged below the $5 level, I'm still going to mail you a postcard. A sign of my gratification. I'm considering sending you all a postcard- an even bigger sign of my immeasurable gratification. The bad news is that I've been so busy lately (finishing the $20 and $50 level rewards, attending my cousin's Bat Mitzvah and working crazy amounts of overtime) that I haven't really even started the postcard yet. The ideas are brewing, but ink and paper are far from meeting.

The second set of good and bad news is for the people who will be receiving the coloring books. The good news is that the fossil fuels book is done and ready, but the nuclear book needs a little revision and output. Again, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but I've been really busy (not to mention sleep-deprived).

So I had been thinking that since so many of you are in and around New York it would be nice for me to throw a little "Thank You" cocktail hour, and I could hand off all your gifts and save on shipping, and we could all become better friends.

Then I was like, well, a lot of you I see around the studio, and this weekend we're totally throwing a party for Tom and Andrew's AWESOME "Teach the World how to Doodle" http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomwatson/teach-the-world-how-to-doodle which promises to be a rage-er. I might actually be bar tending. I really think it's best if I invite you all to that. It's Friday night, prolly 8 or 9ish, at the studio, 166 7th St in Brooklyn, take the GF to Smith Ninth or the GF or R to 4th and 9th. I'll try to have everyone's prints packed and ready for transport before we tap the keg.

Back to business:

The great new for me is that I just successfully transferred $1520.80 from my amazon account into my checking account. Totally awesome.

AND THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!

My plan from here on out is to be as transparent as Tim Geithner said he would be in my accounting, as to not let any of you think, "Have I been had?" I promise you all, individually, that no, you have not been had. I am fully committed to fulfilling all that I have promised you in the past, in this update, and even in future updates.

So here goes: I had $1667 pledged. By the time Amazon and Kickstarter took their pieces of MY pie, I am officially in the black $1520.80. I already spent $161.26 used up another $75 worth of paper and $50 worth of ink (give or take (and yes, that is a REALLY FAIR estimate)) of my existing stock on the screen and relief prints. 1520.80 - 286.26 leaves me with $1234.54 of your hard earned cash-ola to burn. The map I intend to buy, ( http://infostore.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php... ) will cost $495 + shipping that I can't figure out right now. $1234.54- $495, - possibly upwards of $75 shipping leaves me with $664.54. I can see blowing $200 on shipping these prints out to people that I can't hand them off to (I actually have to mail one to Iraq), so I'm plotting what I should do with the $464.54 that is safely estimated to remain in my coffer.

Oh yeah, and I had 7 people donate at the $100 level, and as I'm sure you all remember vividly, I promised my $100 backers that I would donate $15 to their Kickstarter projects. Since none of you have started one (and let me know if you need an invite) I will transfer $105 into my savings account for safe-keeping and interest-bearing until you do.

So now I'm down to $359.54.

And you know what's really funny? Not funny like, ha ha, or lol, or rontflol, but funny like, huh, that's really more just a coincidence than funny... ? Do you remember when I told you all what was on my Christmas list? Let me remind you: one of the items was a litho roller: an extremely important piece of equipment that any serious printmaker, lithographer, or printmaking shop manager (or queen, if you must, Steph) MUST HAVE. The litho roller that I had picked out, and have been dreaming about buying since before I started dreaming about buying the map that I'm about to buy, is, like, well, practically exactly $359.54

So what do you say? Can I get it, can I get it? Pullllleeeeeeeeeaasssssuh?!

(Canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad canwegetapooldad ... )

I can't in good conscience just buy it while I have all you thinking I'm going on some epic researching vacation or am investing in all these fabulous supplies for your gifts or anything.

I really need it.
It's a good and necessary investment, for me.
I won't let you down.

I will be accepting votes for next 14 days. If 25 of you say, "NO, DO NOT BUY THE LITHO ROLLER (that you really really need and would make great work with and take really good care of for ever and ever amen)" by Tuesday, March 9th, then I won't buy it, and I will figure out what to do with the rest of your money to make you proud-er.

And I'm open to suggestions, as always.

And as always, thank you all so so much for supporting me and for putting up with me through all of this. My gratitude really is immeasurable.

Forever all of yours- Julia

Here we are: 3 days left to go and 121% funded. So freaking cool. I, personally, CAN NOT WAIT to get my power grid map, and you all are responsible for enabling me to fulfill this dream.

My last update was just before I actually reached the funding goal. Moments after I sent out a mass email and facebook message (and I DO APOLOGIZE do those of you who got all 3 (I warned you at least)) I flew past the $1,000 goal. After I finished my victory dance and trying to explain to co-workers why on Earth I could be so happy (I was at work after all), I hunkered down to seriously consider the designs for the parting gifts. 11 days later, ladies and gentlemen, your screen print has been brought forth.

I do want to congratulate all the backers at the $20 and $100 level because you are going to recieve one bad ass screen print worth WAY MORE than $20. And think of how much it will be worth once I get famous or after I, echm, you know. And as I promised, it's not huge and you won't have to spend a lot to frame it. You could, though, if you wanted to- the print deserves it.

Read it and weep.

What does this mean for the rest of you? Well, I promised that the screen print and relief print would each be editioned one for every backer plus one for me to keep. Right now there are 19 people eligible for the screen print, plus me makes 20, and there are 31 prints in existence that are good enough to get signed. So, if I don't get 11 more $20 or $100 backers in the next three days, I'll have to burn or shread the remaining prints or something. That would make me pretty sad because I definitely worked pretty hard on these, and I really like them, besides.

So for the rest of you, if you're under the $20 level you can always INCREASE your pledge to get one of these great prints. If you're over the $20 level, you have the choice of "trading in" your relief print for $50 worth of all the other stuff OR you could increase your pledge to $70 to get relief print and the screen print, OR OR you could increase your bid to the $100 (yeah yeah yeah do that!) and get a lot of great stuff. If I were you, I would do it. Don't let this chance pass you by!

I highly doubt that I'll be able to finish the relief print by the time the funded ends, so I don't think I'll be able temp or taunt you with that. So this is my "last" ditch effort to eek out a little more support.

Don't forget- you all can ALWAYS forward this message (or the email I'm about to send everyone) to anyone you know that might be feeling philanthropic, and you can DEFINITELY ALWAYS post it on your facebook status, or tweet about it (does anyone actually do that?), or pass it along any great way you might have.

Really don't forget- I appreciate all of you enormously. I do hope you like the stuff I'm making for you.

THANKS