We’ve got these adorable rings all posted and ready for sale! You can go to our Figs Shop or our Etsy to buy them if you like em’. We sadly had to say goodbye to our Tiny Fawn Ring though, his lil’ legs were to prickly and scratchy. Meet the newest members of our Forest Family!
Tiny Bird Ring
Tiny Bunny Ring
Here are two premier videos for the Levi’s Go Forth Short we have a feature in. It was made by duckduckcollective. you don’t see us in either of these, but it’s still crazy to think our faces were that huge.
Levis hired a company called Neverstop to show the short film in San Francisco and New York.
San Francisco:
New York:
The other day a reporter from the Boston Globe (our old home town) called and did an interview with elijah about his music, the label elijah releases through, and his kidney transplant. did you know elijah had a kidney transplant? yup, he did. june 6th 2007. did you know who saved his life with a kidney donation? our wonderful friend Jason, who is also the heart of Grinding Tapes Recording Co. I’ll let the article do the writing. And if you want to learn more about elijah’s crazy struggle with a randomly diagnosed lethal kidney disease that just about killed him, check out the site i made when it was happening. it’s kind of wordy, but tells the whole story. elijah is doing amazingly well now, his dr. says elijah is one of the best recovered kidney recipients he’s ever treated. go elijah! jason also recovered nicely with no complications, hooray!
A label of love
With Grinding Tapes, Jason Rozen’s mission to help musicians goes well beyond just putting out albums
Jason Rozen’s record label manifesto is “peace, justice, and humanitarian relief through art.’’ He gives a portion of album sales to a charity of the artist’s choosing. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff
)By Jonathan Perry Globe Correspondent / October 30, 2009CAMBRIDGE – Being supportive of the artists on your record label is one thing. Giving one of them a kidney is quite another.
To Jason Rozen, who launched the Grinding Tapes Recording Co. four years ago as a way of putting out an LP by North Carolina songwriter Elijah Wyman – and then donated a kidney to him two years later – it was just something friends do for one another.
In fact, Rozen doesn’t even mention the organ transplant when he talks about the gently fretful, haunted mood that typifies Wyman’s music, or his label’s mission of giving a portion of its sales to a charity of the artist’s choosing. When I bring it up, over an afternoon snack at a restaurant with Rozen’s Grinding Tapes cohorts Joanna Heath and Matt Lacorazza, the soft-spoken 26-year-old turns a bit bashful.
“Elijah had some health problems a couple of years back. His kidneys failed, and he only had college-based health insurance,’’ says Rozen, who grew up in Boxford and lives in Andover. “But yes, I did donate a kidney. I feel fine now, but it was a little bit scary at the time.’’
In a separate phone interview from his home in Asheville, N.C., Wyman laughs, having correctly guessed that Rozen – whom he has known since high school – had neglected to volunteer the story of his extraordinary sacrifice. “Yep, that’s Jason,’’ says Wyman, 24, who grew up near Rozen on the North Shore and now records under the new moniker of tiny mtns. “He’s such a great, incredibly giving guy.’’ Wyman reports he’s been doing well since the 2007 transplant and jokes that Rozen’s act of friendship was actually the label’s version of a comprehensive health care plan – an extreme form of dedication to its artists, you might say.
Everything about Grinding Tapes is hands on. All of the CD and vinyl (and, in one case, cassette) releases for the label’s eight artists feature limited-edition, handmade letter-pressed album covers and packaging that have become collector’s items in certain circles. Most of the money made through sales of CDs, LPs, and MP3s is paid directly to the artist through the Grinding Tapes website (www.grindingtapes.org), with a portion of the proceeds also going to charity. Several of the releases have even been sold on a pay-what-you-want sliding scale ranging from $5 to $15.
So far, Grinding Tapes is still a labor, and label, of love more than profit. But that soon may change, as its presence on the music blogosphere appears to be increasing. Wyman says he isn’t surprised. “Jason’s such a geeky fan of music,’’ Wyman says. “And when you’re putting that much energy and care and love into something, it makes sense that it will grow bigger.’’
Rozen named his label Grinding Tapes after his teenage recording experiments. “In high school, I went back to using tapes and messing around with the tape after I recorded on it,’’ he says. “I even went so far as to try to boil my tapes to get an aging effect and get as much of an old ’80s sound as possible. After I destroyed them, they would kind of creak and grind as I tried to play them in my four-track.’’
From there, friends who played and shared bills together coalesced around, and into, a label. “There’s a thriving local scene that just kind of came to us,’’ says Rozen, describing the label’s existence almost as an accident. “But I feel like now there’s a lot more responsibility to keep that momentum going.’’ The latest Grinding Tapes brainstorm, which took effect this month, is a digital subscription service featuring exclusive downloads, live tracks, and demos.
As far as the label’s published website “manifesto’’ promoting “peace, justice, and humanitarian relief through art,’’ Rozen says he modeled its philosophy on that of seminal independent labels such as Washington, D.C.’s Dischord Records and Quebec’s Constellation Records. “After college, we were at loose ends as far as activism goes, so we were trying to figure out how best to continue that.’’ The label manifesto, says Rozen, “was a good way to channel our energy so that we still felt like we were making a difference.’’
“I really enjoy that [the label] creates this community of artists and great people collaborating, and that I get to be a part of it,’’ says Heath, who is Rozen’s girlfriend. She created the label’s spare, effectively eye-catching cassette tape logo and helps assemble the album covers at home. “I was a fan of the bands from the start, so it’s really a great experience now,’’ Heath says. “You want to see them grow and succeed and do well. And it’s also really fun to see an entire house filled with drying, freshly printed CD jackets.’’
Garfield. I wasnt’ a huge garfield fan, but i liked him a lot. My most favorite was his Halloween special from 1989.
Please have a wonderful, safe, and scary weekend!! We’ll post some photos of our spooky times next week.
hearts,
rhonda
Rhonda and I are in the new Levi’s ad campaign! At about 2:15 you’ll find us… Rhonda wants you to watch at the very end of our segment, it flashes to an old couple and makes her tear up every single time she sees it.
A few months ago I was nearly asleep in my backyard around midnight. I had brought a blanket and pillows out to the hammock, prepared for a slumber party with the fireflies. My snooze was interrupted when my friend Kimberly called and said, “Hey there’s these cool folks working for Levi’s new ad campaign and they want to do a story on you and Rhonda and Figs. Come over to Sky Bar!”
Well, Ra and I went to Skybar and hit it off with the folks from Duck Duck Collective, a group of BFF’s from Lynchburg, VA who take stunning photo’s/videos, and they spent the entirety of the following day following Rhonda and I around with cameras, asking us questions and zooming in on Crashdog. Duck Duck was hired by Levi’s to travel the Eastern Seaboard to document the New America. They chose to focus on many great, tender communities where us Millennials are thriving and sharing.
What I love about this short film is Duck Duck’s choice to explore characters that are working towards becoming what they love. In most cases in the film they are working with their group of friends to create something beautiful…or at least healthy…which is beautiful. “
-Elijah
my turn! the weirdest part of all this is that i had actually emailed duckduck several months prior about a figs photoshoot. i saw some of their wedding work from a friends facebook photos and knew they would be a great fit for us. someone responded but said they would be away for a bit and he would get back to me in a couple months (due to the levi’s thing). when i asked what their website was at the end of the day i figured it all out. they were just as surprised as us! i freaking *love* when weird fate-like coincidences happen. it made me so happy. turns out they are all super dope folks and they all have great hair.
We actually have a full video with duckduck, which we saw while visiting them for a tiny mtns show. it made me cry!! i hope to high heaven we get a copy of that to show our kids someday, even if we sadly can’t show anyone else….
xoxo-rhonda
Thanks DuckDuckCollective! You three are just super.
Hi everyone! It’s your friendly Figs & Ginger studio manager, Stacey.
I’ve been working here at Figs & Ginger for a little over a month now. I’m having a great time working with Rhonda and Elijah and learning so much about what goes into a small business. I’ve been sending a lot of little fawns, birds and bunnies on their way to some great people who support Figs & Ginger.
Not to mention the little animals that are wandering around while I work. Puppykitty is here right now warming my lap on this cold rainy morning in Asheville. Crashdog is still a little protective when I first come over in the morning, but almost immediately he’s on his back waiting for me to rub his belly.
Here is a picture of the lovely Wolf which we have rearranged to hold pretty much everything I need to work. Which is nice because with the little space heater we added, it’s a cozy place to be. Puppykitty is there on the ground enjoying the sun with me that day.
I’m glad to be here as the newest member of the Figs & Ginger crew, just in time for my husband Lee to help demolish and rebuild the new trailer too! He’s loving that. You’ll be seeing me here on the blog pretty often now, so please comment if you have any requests on things you want to hear from me. Things about Figs & Ginger, things about living in Asheville, anything at all and I’ll see what I can do. I’m also on twitter as Stacey_C_ (underscores in the spaces before and after C) and will be “tweeting” about things we’re doing around Figs, so follow me there too!
that is Stacey. she’s awesome. Stacey has been working here for about a solid month now and has caught onto the Fig’s ways super quick. our old Studio Manager Stephanie, who was also awesome, had to move far, far away. we scrambled as we needed to find, hire & train someone in 2 weeks time. i was a bit stressed to say the least. but alas, our good friend Kimberly recommended Stacey and another of her friends to us. we actually had minor interactions with stacey during the Earth Day Giveaway and she was super sweet. we met with Stacey first. we were going to meet with the other candidate, who seems real nice, but thought Stacey would be a great fit so asked her to join our lil’ family. and yay! she did.
stacey is nice, funny, a bit sarcastic, witty, likes the same music as us, has a super fun husband, is super fun herself, pays attention to detail, is a wicked fast learner, and is doing a great job! elijah, crash-dog, puppy-kitty, and i are more than happy to welcome both her and lee into our lil’ figs family. we’re sure you’ll like her as much as we do. she’ll be doing some blog posts about working with Figs, so that should be fun!
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today the ice cream truck came by, which it normally does i think. when elijah heard the tune he actually hopped up, jumped out of the trailer, ran into the house to grab money (forgetting to get money for Stacey and me) and next i saw him he was standing on the side of the road eagerly waiting straining his neck to see the truck come around the corner. Stacey and i soon followed, but i grabbed my camera and our glass milk jug of quarters.
it was delicious.
now we need to figure out our halloween costumes!
i miss working in the old bank vault in Salem, MA. I just stuck all my stuff on the metal walls...
wowzers. last night i decided to figure out our ‘ball park’ estimates for the holiday making season so i can get an idea of what i need to order. i estimate fairly high, keep in mind, but this is what i came up with. it may look like gibberish, but it’s a pretty insane amount of work! and very very exciting!
nice n neat
eek! so, anyone want to intern for Figs during the Holidays? seriously…
I made those estimates based on our Holiday Shows, past Retail Sales Records, past Wholesale records, and Wholesale orders waiting to be filled. We’re going to be slightly crazy this season, chances are we’ll be out of stock on some stuff on our site. If that happens, check out Uncommon Goods, they’ll have a boat load of our goods this season and perhaps you’ll be luckier there. Or check any of our shops listed on our Where to Buy page, or stop by one of the shows below!
Craftland: Providence, RI – Retail Show (4th or 5th year doing this show)
No Coast Craft-o-Rama: Minneapolis- Dec 4-5 (1st year for us)
Urban Craft Uprising: Seattle – Dec 5-6 (2nd show for us)
Boston Bazaar Bizarre: Boston, MA – Dec 6 (4th or 5th year for us)
Handmade Arcade (NOT CONFIRMED) Pittsburg – Dec 12
DC Holiday Market: Washington, DC – Dec 16-20 (1st time for us)
Renegade Craft: San Francisco – Dec 19-20 (3rd time Ren SF, 4th or 5th yr with Renegade shows)
Here is what my Studio looks like today. It’s not clean, and rarely is. I always wonder about those studio tours and how clean they are. I think even if i cleaned up real nice, mine still would look more ratty than most of those out there. ah well…
home sweet home.
pickle pots w/ babush's vintage decorative staircasae
hammers in my vintage falling apart frame
a couple more photos of my studio.
We’ve got the office part of things in The Wolf, which we’ll have more photos of soon.
Hope you had a great weekend!!
hearts,
rhonda
we have SO MANY videos we have taken at various craft shows throughout the years. I’m going to post a couple for you to look through…. we may have the date wrong on some, and possibly the name. if you think we are wrong please let us know so we can correct it, thanks!
Renegade Craft San Francisco Summer 08
New York International Gift Show Aug 09. excuse elijah’s shaky-ness on this one.
laurel denise is our neighbor and friend, her work so so mega sweet.
wow! on our drive back from crafty bastards we decided to buy a vintage trailer, fix it up and rest it on our land. all while fixing up our house to sell in february, when we would hope to get enough to pay off our extensive amount of debt. approx. $46,000 between credit cards and small biz loan. after that we just have our element payment, and student loans. some of you may know, elijah almost died a couple years ago due to a completely random kidney disease, our friend jason donated his kidney and saved his life, awesome, right? well, in that time we wracked up some crazy bills on our credit cards paying for whatever insurance wouldn’t pay for, living expenses the two jobs i had couldn’t afford to pay for, and the birth of Figs.
in the past two years we haven’t had to resort to credit cards and run our business and life on what we make, which is amazing and we are really excited about that. unfortunately we still have all that dept., and our lovely credit cards doubled our interest rate. i have perfect credit and have had these cards for over 10 years, i felt personally offended that they did this to me. then i realize what a silly thought that was and came to terms with the evil-ness that is ‘credit’. we don’t want it anymore. we are so over it. if we can’t afford to pay for it now, we don’t’ get it until we can afford to. with all that said we are planning to downsize into this beauty:
here she is, in all her unpolished glory. Thanks for finding this on CG MOM!
and the Wolf
us in front of 'the wolf', our vintage pink & teal camper we renovated into the Figs office.
for about a year after we sell our house and pay off whatever we can. in that time we’ll be saving around 2000 a month in bills, living on our land and getting ready to build our Figs Studio/permanent house. it will be awesome. promise! the Avion will be open and airy and serve as our living room, kitchen, and bathroom. the Wolf will be our ‘master bedroom’. we’ll be making a lil courtyard with privacy fence, fire pit, outdoor shower, and outdoor living space. we are *so* excited!
Here are some ‘before’ photos our friend Rich took, he’s pretty awesome. And a ‘before’ video…
thinking?
sorry ladies, he's taken.
i say ‘eww’ at the end because it smelled so bad in there.
we’ve already started demo! Here are a couple photos of Lee (our new studio manager Stacey’s hubby) and Elijah doing some wreckage, and then the creepy crawlers we found…
we’re going to have lots of updates on this lil’ life project so stay tuned!
hearts,
*rhonda
