The Longest Journey Coin

The pieces I make are mostly inspired in things I know and like and love. I like to choose designs, images or words not just by my capacity to give them an interesting development, but because of the meaning they have for me. Internal jokes, details you start to notice after rewatching many times your favorite show, beloved characters that sometimes are not the main hero, things I want to be remembered.

Sometimes I can make things at commision, like Mother's Day gifts or objects with an specific purpose. I try to provide an interesting approach as far as the person gives me the liberty to do it,but I'm more than happy to try to be the closest to the original idea of the commissioner as possible. In this case is what they want it to mean what matters.

One of the last I made the past year cannot be placed in any of these "categories". It's not something I had experienced neither something I'm completely unrelated to. 

Available on Etsy

The Longest Journey is a long and complex videogame than I never played. But I live with someone who did, and got surprised and challenged and amazed and confused by it. He loves it and I have witnessed that love growing through the years. I remember to be sitted next to each other seeing him playing to show me some of the most beautiful parts and characters, trying to explain me the argument, making me aware of the importance of the game for him. I do. I love that he loves it, so even knowing almost nothing I made that coin. I cannot explain too much about it, but he can.

This is what Engler told me about the game:

The longest Journey is one of those series that has a right to be called seminal, the scope of the first game is massive, and it truly delivers on the promise of its title, is a long and fascinating Journey through out the worlds of Stark and Arcadia, the first being a world of science, with strokes of modern dystopias, all-encompassing corporations and near future technologies; the latter is a magic world with wizards, dragons, pirates and a talking crow. 

It also gave birth to not one but two of the best characters in videogame history: April Ryan, the protagonist of the first game; and Zoë Castillo, the protagonist of the second one “Dreamfall”.

Both characters are young women who embark on their respective journeys full of self-doubt and lack of purpose. They never quite become the saving heroine, instead they act out of commitment to the people they love. Throughout the games they second guess many decisions, fully aware that blind courage doesn’t guaranty victory, will and perseverance alone are not the formula for success, a trope so endlessly used by fiction, particularly that directed to young adults.

Both women are fully realized as human beings, they have desires, passions, etc; most importantly, they have opinions: about music, art, politics, sex, food; they fail their friends, sometimes they don’t have the chance to make up, they suffer and push through the suffering, sometimes grandiose, sometimes intimal, always becoming stronger and kinder at the same time at the end of the struggle.

And about the coin:

“The Talisman of the Balance”, from the cult classic videogame series “The Longest Journey”.

Stark is ruled by science and pragmatism, Arcadia is full of magic and mysticism. The one who bears the Talisman of the Balance is the Sentinel of The Divide, to keep harmony between the parallel worlds and the conflicting nature of every sentient being.

 Thank you!

New year, old resolutions!

As always, mine is trying to commit myself to the creation proccess, involving not only the making of new pieces, but discovering alternative techniques, learning to use some tools, exploring new materials, putting effort on the maintenance of the Etsy store, registering, updating and communicating the progress here and in the other channels where I share my work. This is a little exhausting, I'm not very active in social networks but I really want to do it because I feel the feedback and the resulting interaction is worth it. I'm going to talk about this later.

The last year I shutted down the store because I was not sure (I'm not yet) if some changes of rules on Etsy would fit my necesities neither I would fit their new business model, more focused I think on small/medium size companies instead of single artisans or crafters. I'm not in any of this categories, this is mostly a hobby and I like to keep it in this way, a relaxing but productive activity that finances itself. I make things because I want to see if I can, or to treat myself with something nice to wear, or to gift, or to sell, and if I sell something I reinvest it in new materials or tools. When this happens it makes me incredibly happy, but right now I don't want the commitment of make it bigger, or increase my production to try to obtain financial profit. It would be nice someday, maybe, but not right now.

Anyway, after many considerations, I have decided to take the risk of reopening it. I'm still trying to learn how to use the new features of Etsy and hoping this is not going to get me in troubles, but I have to recognize it, is nice to see the pieces exhibited and know people are coming in, sharing it, putting likes or hearts, or saying good job. 

I wanted to do more than reopen the old store, I wanted change some things I realized I made wrong back in 2011 when I first opened it, and I kept  postponing to fix later. I made a new logo (I was not able to find inspiration before and kept putting just a nice picture of a piece every time a page asked me for a banner/profile picture). 

It's not a professional work, but I like it. I hope it helps to keep a consistent visual identification everywhere. 

I updated the appearance of the store and started to make listings for the pieces. Some of this work was just reactivate expired ones, but I made a review of some things in the description. For some pieces I made the past year I had to do the entire process: take the pictures, write a description, choose tags, categorize it, add variations, price, shipping options, translate everything. 

Once it was for sale on Etsy, I started to communicate it to the world in all the sites and related pages I keep (the hard work). 

This post is part of this task and I enjoy writing about all of this, but It's also a little overwhelming to have so much places to fill with information. Sometimes I think that in the benefit of my mental health I have to choose just one, or just two, but every site has a quality I like. It is very simple to share a picture of a piece you have in your hand on Instagram, and Deviantart is a place where I can share a more technical view of the crafting process, and expect criticism from the point of view of other artisans. Here in the blog I can write about how everything is connected, or be really specific sharing a technique step to step. Seams logic to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, but in both cases I'm not so sure of how or why I should do it. I'm going to try to learn by forcing myself to use it and then choose if I'm going to keep it.

In the same way as with the logo, to have a more unified presence, I set a definitive name, Metal y Tinta (metal and ink), for all the sites and pages. Before, I was using my personal pages for this, and it made it very difficult for people to find my work and for me to tell people where to find it. Now I can say here it is:

**EMAIL** **STORE** **DEVIANTART** **INSTAGRAM** **FACEBOOK** **TWITTER**

Some, like the facebook page, are the same ones. Deviantart and twitter are new accounts so pretty much empty for now, but I'm working to fill it with some interesting things soon.

 And the new resolution for this year, I'm going to try to keep this blog in both Spanish and English. Wish me luck!