May16

Featured Artist: Curt Carter

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Featured Artist: Curt Carter

This is the first in a series of biweekly interviews with Vintage Karma’s artists. Curt Carter is a Tuscola resident who takes gorgeous photos of places near and far. He has traveled all over the United States to capture its scenery.

 

Q: How long have you been creating?

A: I have been selling my photos for about 15 years. … I have been seriously into photography for about 28 years.

Q: What was your first piece? What inspired you to create it?

A: My first piece of what I call a good landscape print was of Mount Katahdin in northern Maine. What inspired me to shoot the mountain was mostly its beauty, but I wanted a good photo of it because I had climbed it and wanted a very large print of it, and was having trouble finding one that suited me. So, I made my own.

Q: How did you get into making your creations?

A: I travel all over into some of the best and scenic places in the U.S., and I like to reproduce what I experienced for others to see.

C.A. Carter atop Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park.

Q: Describe your creative process.

A: My creative process involves finding an area that appeals to me and then studying it for a while till the light and clouds are just right to get out of the shot what I am looking for.

Q: What drew you to your chosen medium?

A: What drew me to photography is that I can photograph all of these different places and bring them home with me to share with others and to revisit them through the photos at any time.

Q: What is your favorite part of the creative process? What is your least favorite part?

A: My favorite part of the creative process is taking something that most people walk by or see every day and take for granted and photograph it in a way that makes them stop and see in it what they overlooked or just can’t see. My least favorite part is that I have so many photos that I really like and not enough time to do them all.

Q: What keeps you inspired/what inspires you?

A: I am not sure what keeps me inspired other than I just can’t pass up a good shot.

Q: What do you do when you’re not making art?

A: What do I do when I am not making art …. looking for new spots and the time to shoot them. Oh and I do have a day job at Shelby Motors in Champaign that takes up too much of my (passion) time.

Check back on May 30 to meet another one of Vintage Karma’s artists and visit our store to check out Curt Carter’s Featured Artist display!

May9

Video of our television appearance on ciLiving.tv!

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Video of our television appearance on ciLiving.tv!

The ciLiving.tv cameras were here on opening day to film the store and interview us!  They did a great job capturing what we are all about in their new segment. Click the logo below to watch!

May2

Craft Night Starting Weds. May 9th at 5pm

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Craft Night Starting Weds. May 9th at 5pm

Now that we are a little more settled with things at the store we decided that it was time to bring back the VK craft night!  (They were held at the previous Stroudsburg, PA location a little while back).  It is free to attend and a great way to meet some new artsy/crafter types in a chill environment.  Bring a project with you or try one of the kits we have for sale!

It will be held every Wednesday at 5pm til 6:30pm.

Apr12

We’re open!

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We’re open!

It has been a wonderful week here at Vintage Karma. Our opening kicked off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday morning, and since then we’ve met many new folks, sold some local art and the tattoo machine is buzzing away.

Thank you so much to everyone for their support! A special thanks to our family members, friends, the city of Tuscola, TEDI and the VK artists.

Below are just a sampling of photos taken. Please visit our Facebook page for lots more!

Ta-daaaaa! A quiet moment on the eve of opening day. *Photo by Ainslie.*

Somebody's excited about the opening! Fred Heilich, Ainslie's dad, was here before the media!

Thanks to the Tuscola Journal. Great photo by Douglas Cottle!

First sale! Misty finally gets a root beer after waiting patiently for us to open. *Photo by Ainslie*

One of our displays. *Photo by Carly McCrory*

VK floor treatment. We used old book pages, wallpaper paste and lots of polyurethane. *Photo by Carly*

Ainslie's tattoo area. *Photo by Carly*

*Photo by Carly*

*Photo by Carly*

A special visitor! Ranger from Okaw Veterinary Clinic came to see us on our very first day. :)

Mar16

The details of the day

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The details of the day

While we’ve been quiet here on the website, Ainslie and I have been super busy doing everything we can to get our new brick-and-mortar location rolling.

Now, as we finish up our floor treatment (sneak peeks below!), it’s coming down to details. We thought it’d be fun to share some of the details of recent days.

Painting outlet covers.

Wonderful new railing built by Ainslie's dad, Fred Heilich!

The last photo above is where our soda will live! Ainslie customized the refrigerator with a graffiti-inspired theme. We are looking forward to offering unique, old-timey sodas from Homer Soda Company.

As for what other goodies we’ll have at Vintage Karma, stay tuned. We’ll be back soon with some art to show you!

Jan28

Secrets in the Attic

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Secrets in the Attic

Our building houses a former Oddfellows meeting hall in the upstairs. The Oddfellows are a secret society/fraternity that was once very popular a century ago but has since waned in membership. 

Random googled oddfellows group shot. Maybe someday we can find a photo from our own building!

Laura and I met a guy the other night that lived in our apartment 20 years ago and gave us a very cool lead about some Oddfellow items that had been left behind, stowed in the crawl space above the apartment.  Needless to say, we went on a treasure hunt and what we found was beyond anything we would have imagined.
 
We knew that there was a hatch in each bathroom to the crawl space so we checked up there…..nothing.   We figured that a lot of time had passed and that whatever was up there had been removed at some point.  As a last minute idea we wanted to look above the drop ceiling tiles in the laundry room because Laura was curious about the old wallpaper on the ceiling above. That is where we hit paydirt!
 
There was another hatch! Next to that mystery hatch was a section of the ceiling that we could see through the old wooden lath. (The plaster was gone due to a major roof leak some years ago. )  When we shined our flashlights on it just right…….we could see that something was there!
  
 

What’s up there?

What the heck is up there??????

So we grabbed the 15 ft. telescoping ladder to see what things looked like.

Some sort of a hat!

Pardon the blurry cell phone picture!

Some sashes, and A LOT of dust!

After several hours of carefully tossing down items and gently brushing off the dust/lint/mold/ick/etc.  this is what we managed to find!

  • 21 sashes of varying ornamentation.
  • 4 hats, including one labeled “High Priest” (the second one in).
  • 1 torch/candleholder.

Overall the items are in varying stages of condition, but we are amazed that they survived being directly below where the roof leak was.  But we are now on to another treasure hunt. For info!  Who would hide these items up in the crawlspace and why? How long have you been up there?  We started making up our own theories but have no idea if they are anywhere close to the truth. 

If you or anyone has any info/stories/photos about the Tuscola Oddfellows and our building, please let us know! shopvintagekarma@gmail.com

-Ainslie

Dec25

Progress

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Progress

How do you like this carpet toboggan and cheesy clipart? This is what happens when we get silly while removing rugs at Vintage Karma! 

We’ve been busy elves this past  week with sanding and painting prep, too. Here are more shots of our recent progress.

 

With the carpet killed, Laura sands away the putty to reveal nail holes that are all filled up. Many, many nail holes.

 

Ainslie covers up the precious.

 

Before

 

After! If you want to know what this will look like, stay tuned ...

 

Still sanding. Lots more to go!

 
That’s all for now. Happy holidays!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dec20

A Peek at the Past

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A Peek at the Past

We have been doing some research into our building and my Dad found some images at the local county museum.  The first picture is an exterior shot of West Sale Street in the 1970s. It is kind of cool but we can’t make out what the store was at that time. Hopefully, we will meet lots of people with good long memories that can fill us in on the not so recent past of our building.

The best find that Dad came back with is this interior shot from what we suspect (based on the mens’ attire and the hanging oil lamps) is from between the turn of the century and 1915?

Once upon a time, our location was J. L. Dawson’s grocery and mercantile business. They
used the latest technology in making change (National Cash Registers) and getting customers their money’s worth (Dayton Computing Scales).  The look and feel of this old bygone era is part of what we are trying to capture with our store. You can see one rather dapper clerk on the far right manning the cash register and then down the counter behind him is another clerk at the scales.  There are two gentlemen standing in the center. The one on the left is wearing a more modern suit and is sporting a moustache while the older bearded one on the right is dressed more formally in a vest/overcoat with a bow tie, pocket watch, and bowler cap.  I would put my money on the latter being Mr. J.L. Dawson himself.

We know that in 2001 the store was a gift store named “Friends Remembered” before it became the “Chuck Wagon” until it closed in 2010.  We also know that our upstairs ballroom was originally an Oddfellows meeting hall and then was repurposed as a church chapel and aerobics/yoga workout space in the 1980s and 90s.   Laura and I hope that we can unearth some more old photos and stories about our building. If you have any, please feel free to share!

-Ainslie

 

 

Dec15

I have a guest spot until we get the new store/studio open.

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I have a guest spot until we get the new store/studio open.

There is so much we are trying to get done to our building to get it ready for business.  That being said, I will be tattooing part time (Fridays and Saturdays so far) at Altered Egos in Champaign until things are ready to go in Tuscola.

Call me at 570-994-6671 or email me at vintagekarma@gmail.com to set something up!

-Ainslie

via I have a guest spot until we get the new store/studio open..

Oct31

Fun with photos

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Fun with photos

So it’s pretty obvious we here at VK are fond of our camera phones and all the fun apps you can play around with. Above is a photo Ainslie took of me last week after we did a little update in our window. If you’re interested in recreating the effect, you’ll need the plain “Camera” app on your Droid X. (Sorry, iFolks. I’m sure you have something comparable.) From there, choose the Panorama picture mode. Then, it’s pretty easy to figure out.

Unless you’re me.

I had to crop out the crummy parts. As in most of the photo.

So, I need a tripod and more practice. Yup.

– Laura