Marfa Lights.

Out in the desert weird things can happen. You're in the middle of the desert and then out of no where, strange lights appear and then they're gone. Little bursts of dancing lights.
THE MARFA MYSTERY lights! They exist! They are real. I've seen them many times by Marfa and also down south in Terlingua above the Chisos and also heading to Ft.Davis.

Here's the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights

We made a shirt in their honor.

moving along.

eheLE is moving along slowly but moving none the less... Johanna and I just purchased our first order of tees, and the space is slowly coming together. It was exciting opening up the first big box and all those blank t-shirts were staring back at us, waiting for screen prints and patches.

We met with a local retailer here in Alpine who was interested in carrying our shirts. Now we just have to make them. We're going to make local shirts representing the area first, more geared towards tourist types. It's been fun thinking up images typical of the area.
LIKE-
javelinas
cacti
soltol
6packs
twin peaks
burros.....and the list goes on.

Until the next time.
xxxooo

workshop photos. and junk photos.

These pictures are old, but here is our work space when we first started (pre-garage sale)


Wow. That's a lot of treasures. We started a flickr account too. You can see more photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/10322656@N02/

We'll post more photos later of the space now that it's painted and functional.

Junk sales and trips across the border.

Things are moving along with the start up of our company. We're staying busy cleaning, organizing,learning,researching,budgeting. Lots of things.

Our garage sale was a success this last weekend. We made around 200bucks. That's a lot of money when you're selling crappy junk. We did a good job of not letting anyone leave the sale without buying something. Surprisingly, the wobbly tables, cracked aquariums, tacky clothes and more sold. Who would have thought. AND no more useless stuff in our office/work space.

It was awesome. We used the sale money to go to Ojinaga, Mexico. Our friends were playing music for a birthday party at the bar OJ. There was about 8 of us that went. We all got hotel rooms and had plenty of delicious mouth watering food. Rach and I bought fabric, some really good natural soaps and other things we thought we could use.

We found a store we really liked and wanted to talk to the owner to see about setting up a business deal with him. The guy working didn't know where he was, so he sent us on a wild goose chase. We went here and there and then here and there and then back looking for "this guy". Someone would tell us, "Well I think there is a guy like that works over there" and then we would go over there and the guys would say, "oh no, that guy works over there, go check over there". It was hilarious. Finally when we were just about to give up, the guy came driving up, he had heard we were looking for him! We set up a meeting with him next weekend.

YES! Another excuse to cross the border and buy more tortillas and soltol.
We also got a chance to talk to my friend's cousin, Lizette who lives in OJ. Her cousin owns the museum there. We want to have some art shows and get people on both sides of the border involved.

Overall, it was a great trip and we got some business done.

logo.

We've talked a lot about logos and the images we want to portray through our company. For a logo, we decided we would go with a scorpion since we live in the desert. Also, they're cool. Now comes the fun part of designing the actual logo and picking what scorpion body to use. Maybe we can get one of the guys from the band The Scorpions to write us a catchy theme song or model our clothes.

echeLE! and getting the new HQ ready.

So. It's official. Rach and I are on our way building the echeLE empire! We spent this past weekend going through piles and piles of STUFF, wiping away dust and spider webs and hauling the unwanted STUFF to the front room of the gallery (temporarily). It was interesting driving down Gallego Ave. with a huge trailer full of garage sale items (junk). Here's an example of some of the stuff we'll be hockin this Saturday:
1 Gazelle 9000
1 broken aquarium w/ stand
4 beastly computer monitors
1 box of test tubes (different sizes)
1 wobbly kitchen table
numerous unloved unwanted stuffed animals
1 Bowflex
1 dusty fax machine
1 pair of skis (there is not much skiing out here in the desert)
Rachel's old bird cage with authentic antique bird mess in it.

...and the list goes on. I can barely walk to the front door. But what a deal! We're gonna hit it rich! The profits from the sale will go to start up funds. Like bottles of wine and trips to Chinati Hot Springs.

We're both so excited to get started on our clothing/import business. And what an opportunity to have sooo much space. We'll have an office, a workshop (welding torch included among other tools), and more studio space. And the best part is the view. And the gardens. And grapes and hammocks. It's going to rock. I'll post the pictures later. I actually can't find my camera in all this crap. It's important to post the picture we took of the god-knows-how-old deviled eggs that we found when we were cleaning out the closet in the office. They were impressively nasty.
love, Johanna