Made in Fort Point Store

If you live in or are visiting Boston Mass. and have not checked out the Fort Point area, it is definetly worth a visit. The area has changed so much in the past few years. The rent hikes and the development have pushed a lot of the artists out of the neighborhood. There are a lot more restaurants and start-ups in the area now. My favorite new-ish eateries include Flour, Bees-Knees, Tavern Road and Drink.

The artists that are in the neighborhood continue to make Fort Point their own with awesome public art, open studios and the Made in Fort Point store.

The store just recently moved. It is now in a more central location, but just a little hidden. If you are in the area be sure to check it out.

The store sells an array of my prints, and stickers as well as some amazing works by other Fort Point artists. This is a great place to shop for the holidays and support your local crafts-artist.

Above are some of my Krampus Christmas cards.

Krampus Christmas

Happy holidays everyone!

I've been working on some fairly long term projects recently.

This holiday season I will be sending out a little Snail Mail gift envelope of little stickers and such to those of you on my mailing list.

Just add your self to my (E-mail Signup) http://eepurl.com/CZ0Tr with your address before 12/14/2013.
(I will only ship to US mailing addresses)

For my holiday card I've been doing a little bit of research on Krampus.
Here is the finished card:

Krampus is a goatish devily creature from German folklore. Krampus acts as Saint Nicholas's opposite. Insted of rewarding good children with presents he punishes naughty children swatting them with switches and rusty chains before dragging them in baskets to a fiery place below.

Krampus grew to be a part of many familys' Christmas traditions.  In the late 1800's, the invention of color printing and postcards wound up making Krampus a Christmas icon.  German-speaking people around the world took to sending their friends and children postcards that featured the Krampus.  The postcards would often read;  GRUSS VOM KRAMPUS, meaning  Greetings From Krampus.  The message was intended to be a humorous reminder to be good.

Who is Krampus?

 

In these regions it also became fairly common for the young men of the town to dress up and run through the streets. Whenever the first people decided to dress up as Krampus, they would have created a monster defined by whatever easily available materials could be used for a startling effect. In some cases those materials were the horns and pelts of mountain goats, and in others, straw or hay set aside as winter fodder. Today, though some costumes may be produced by mass production, they still imitate the look established by materials regionally available in Alpine valleys.

Their traditional costumes and masks are elaborately handcrafted. Krampusses can usually be encountered on and a few days before December 6

The Truth About Krampus

Atlas Obscura

 

Krampus Run

Europe's Wild Men

National Geographic

Beard of Moss

For the children of the Alps, Krampus isn't purely a figure of terror. No, he's also a sugary treat, factoring into a whole host of traditional chocolates, cookies and breads.

http://www.gragger.at/?s=krampus

http://www.zauner.at/english/backstube

 

Decorations from Salzburg 

The Caked Crusader 

 

Croshame Krampus on Etsy

If you like Krampus, I recommend the movie "Rare Exports"

All the best winter wishes and holiday traditions!

-Jen