esther shop!

I've been receiving lots of emails from girls who want to buy my work so I finally put up a few things on Etsy! A set of five postcards and my new zine collaboration, Hairtalk. Check it out here: esther shop

side by side.

(Minzy in Jeremy Scott leggings and CL in Betsey Johnson Opening Ceremony Archive skirt)


I love that 2ne1's stylists have been putting the girls in Jeremy Scott since they first debuted.....I love Jeremy Scott's jersey piececs and prints but I have to say Betsey Johnson did those cuts about twenty years before him. Just sayin', I mean I love them both! They both make clothes for, as cliche as this sounds, girls that wanna have fun or look fun....:-)

PIN Nucleus Show

These are the paintings that I submitted for the PIN Nucleus show. All pieces are priced at $100 and proceeds benefit RED CROSS. The opening is December 12th, 7pm-10pm.

devon 4eva!

I've been a devon fan since highschool(middle school??) anyways, a long time....Lately, she dosen't show up as much as she used to but I was really excited when my friend, Mandy, posted these images on her site. Apparently, they're from the new Tokyo Numero. Love the Frenchy, stepford wife by way of Hong Kong ennui love hotel look~!

so sad...

hairtalk

(the pics are all out of order...but the way the zine goes is that we each have five pages and than we meet in the middle....)


My friend, Aya, and I made our second zine: Hairtalk. Our first zine was put together at a tiny Kinko's in Shibuya. It was so fun. We met in Tokyo about three years ago and although we're in different cities in the States now we still try to do creative projects together. So take a look at our latest creative endeavor.

hello, gas shop!

Here's a sneak peek at the t-shirts I designed for Gas As I/F. The theme is polkadots and bows...

Check out their webshop here:hello gas shop

skills!

Who are you freakishly talented, young, red-headed boy?????

disclaimer

This blog is a private/public space for me to record my thoughts and share pictures. Private in that I don't cultivate relationships with other blogs and public in that it is accessible to anyone. I often use this space to complain, lament and bemoan about things: illustration, career, life, relationships, and all kinds of ups and downs. A lot of my written posts are about things I'm frustrated about. They're often written in the middle of the night, straight out of bed, in my pajamas, in the dark. When I get really anxious about things it calms me down to write it out. I like the sound of fingers tapping the keys on the keyboard. As I write I get caught up in re-working the words to try to better express what I am feeling and when I put my thoughts out there on this blog it is nice to think that there is an other, someone I don't know, reading this and perhaps relating to what I am going through.

It is one way to put order to the chaos in my head.

None of my friends are bloggers but some of them know about this blog and I know they check it from time to time but I really don't expect anyone to read the long entries....but sometimes I do worry that my real-time friends might read something and misinterpret it. Cause if you were to read just the word posts its usually about something that is vexing me and I've usually written it when I'm very anxious.

But it's really just one side of the story and I'm just getting things off my chest as they come.

In a way by writing and publishing my words it feels like someone is listening to me. It is self-therapy that keeps me going.

That is all...

nineties...

Feeling inspired by nineties style/Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis grunge collection...floral spaghetti strap dresses with stripey thermal shirts and chucks...I love this dress but I have to be feeling kind of bold to wear it...its so much print on a lot of fabric...but kind of catches my nineties mood. :-)

run with horses.

I’ve been creatively frustrated for a while...and I’ve been trying to figure out why. Its been kind of difficult to recognize the causes because during this time my personal artistic career has grown but it occurred to me that almost in proportion to that growth my artistic activities with my friends have dematerialized (there are things that I do here and there but I’m talking about something more intense)…and I was thinking about it and I got sad remembering how much fun I used to have doing all these crazy things together with my friends…whom have either grown up or whom I’ve grown apart from.

A certain group of my friends and I used to have a creative salon where we gathered each week and shared something we had made that week. One girl was a fashion designer, the other an actress and I, the illustrator…the disparity of our fields gave us a freedom and diversity in thought. Humour, intelligence and passion abounded. It was a merry bunch and a merry time. I remember falling asleep as I was sewing roses on clothes for a friend’s fashion show. I remember driving early in the morning to a shoot on an aircraft carrier and steaming clothes in a little cabin room. I remember painting a set, pulling clothes, toys, bedding, getting a photographer, make-up artist and hair stylist to put together a photo-shoot just because we wanted to bring to life something we had seen in our heads. Sending our drawings to a magazine and having it used on the cover. Doing live paintings at shows, dressing up and going to art shows…I mean essentially we were dreaming together and working to make our dreams come true. As we actually started reaching those goals our lives have lost some of that innocence and freedom. I didn’t think it would last forever but who knew it would come to such an abrupt stop.

The words: run with horses, keeps running through my mind. We used to run together just to run. I miss that combustible creativity…I miss that creativity for creativity’s sake. I realize that those years were a special time in that they were formative years for all of us and that I cannot go back in time but I want to bring some of that back in my life.

I don’t quite know how and I don’t want to force anything. That is missing the whole point. I don’t want to do event-y things. I wouldn’t want to for example do a craft night unless it was genuine because I find it sad when something like that is more obligation than fun.

Right now I feel as though I can’t quite find what I want and I keep trying to make do but its not quite right.

I just want to make things together with bright, happy people.

I guess I need to reach out to people who have the same hunger as me.

not sweating the small stuff...

Focusing on what's important. Only a couple more months left in 2009. What are you going to do with it?

The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Only through focus can you do world-class things, no matter how capable you are.

Bill Gates

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.

James F. Byrnes

There are two rules for living in harmony. #1) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and #2) It’s all small stuff

Wayne Dyer

filippa berg!

(Wren, Spring 2009)

Filippa Berg is beyond adorable. I love her sleepy, romantic look. It's no wonder she is a muse for so many designers....

say hi to daul is so cute!

friends of a feather.

I wish the sartorialist would take more shots like this of girls like them....and one day I'm going to figure out how to get my eyeliner like that!

dropsnap

lady victoria hervey and tami farrell

Miss California USA, Tami Farrell and Lady Victoria Hervey wearing "esther loves kid dangerous". The shirts are finally, finally available for purchase! Go to kid dangerous to get your own. :-)

Hannabeth/Royal T pop-up store event

Just got back from the Hannabeth/Royal T pop-up store event. A couple of my pieces were included in the shop and they made this really cool decal with my work, love!

Thanks for the pics, Chris! and now I'm going to change into my sweats, yessshh!

korea cute.

ahh, asia....love the trendy k-boys...:-)

china cool.

image:nytimes.com

This image reminds me of a Wong Kar Wai film....I love the ennui and apathetic look of this young man with his sunken in cheeks.

new face!

I finally got around to changing the front page on my website. I've had the previous one forever and I loved it mostly because I enjoyed seeing my friends' faces but I realized that it looks lazy not to change it. I mean I had it for more than three years..Yikes, that's long!


So yeah, I'm going to try to change it up more frequently from here on out.

un-punk, punk girl. :-)

I used to not wear skulls on principle....that is until recently. I found that once I got over that I really started enjoying wearing more and more punk-y clothes....yes, punk as fashion...I used to think it was so wrong...but then I got into a deconstructive-unserious-fashion mood.....why so serious? Let's have fun....cross genres and mix. Why not?

(top and skirt from Topshop...MUST BUY!!)

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W B Yeats

money bags.

I've been casually looking for a cute backpack and hadn't quite seen anything that made my heart stir until I saw this cutie on creatures of comfort. I am completely smitten. Money backpack, please be mine. :-)

anna sui.

I've been a fan of Anna Sui since I was in middle school and its such an honor to have my girls "Sui-fied" in her trademark black and purple. In the nineties everyone had the Anna Sui baby tees. I still can't believe I got to do one.